8 November 2018

A home from home with Aneurin Brown, Head of Safety, Hospitality and Estates

We caught up with Aneurin Brown, Head of Safety, Hospitality and Estates, to find out how he supports all Hallmark Care Homes to provide beautiful and safe environments for residents.

I joined Hallmark Care Homes back in 2014 to work at Greenhill Manor Care Home in Merthyr Tydfil, where I worked for two years as Hospitality Services Manager. Prior to this, I had no experience of working in the care sector, and therefore this was an excellent immersion into the world of care homes and specifically Hallmark Care Homes.

Prior to joining Hallmark Care Homes my background was predominately in hotel operations, catering and facilities management. Most recently I worked for BBC Worldwide Live Events on projects such as Doctor Who and Strictly Come Dancing.

Since my time at Greenhill Manor I have held many different roles but am currently Head of Safety, Hospitality and Estates for the group. This role is very wide and far reaching, and in many ways each of my areas are very different and have different demands on my time and attention; however, there also are many occasions when each of my three areas of responsibility overlap quite nicely too! No two days are the same, and I can often change direction from hour to hour.

The best part of my role is being in the care homes and working alongside the teams there. I don’t have an office or a desk and enjoy travelling around each of the Hallmark Care Homes in England and Wales.

My role in health and safety

I act as the competent person for health and safety at Hallmark Care Homes, which means that I am responsible for the implementation of the Health and Safety Policy, keeping up to date with changes in legislation, carrying out audits and inspections and providing advice and guidance to the risk management team on all matters relating to health and safety.

Each of our homes in England and Wales is audited once every six months to ensure they meet the health and safety standards set out by the CQC and the HSE (Health and Safety Executive).

I am passionate about keeping heath and safety simple and not overcomplicating anything. Compliance in its purest form is simply about doing the right thing at the right time. My view is that, in order to ensure compliance, the route has to be simple and straightforward.

In terms of health and safety, my work is about providing advice and guidance to the teams on how they should approach a certain situation or what to do to ensure a safe activity or task. Positive risk taking is a very important part of the way that Hallmark Care Homes operates and therefore we always balance risk and compliance with the benefit and reward of the residents who live in our homes.

My role in estates

As part of my role I also head up the estates department, which deals with all aspects of the buildings within our estate. This could be anything from painting and decorating to routine maintenance and repairs or large refurbishment projects.

Each one of our homes has a dedicated Maintenance Operative who is responsible for the day-to-day upkeep of the home and for carrying our essential safety checks, which are recorded in the maintenance manual. This manual can be inspected at any time by our regulators and is also audited by myself during Health and Safety Audits.

We have recently formed a new team of workers who travel around each of the homes to carry out routine and reactive maintenance works. There are currently five in the team covering our homes in England and Wales. This is something I am incredibly proud of as these people are Hallmark team members as opposed to external contractors, which means that they can get to know the teams and residents within the homes a lot better and can offer a much more personal service than a contractor would ever be able to do.

My role in hospitality

Hospitality is the newest and most recent addition to my role, and over the coming months I will be working closely with each of our 17 homes to enhance the dining experience and overall hospitality that we offer to both residents and their families.

On a practical level, I work closely with Brian Lane, our Executive Chef, and Rob Byrom, our Regional Hospitality Support Manager, to ensure that all aspects of hospitality are running smoothly. I also provide day-to-day support to the Hospitality Services Managers who are based within our homes.

I am also responsible for food safety/hygiene and carry out training with chefs and managers to ensure that they are up to date on Hallmark Care Homes’ policies and the legal requirements involved with preparing and serving food.

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