How Verus Care Made the Move to Leafnotes

Changing care management systems can feel daunting. There's existing paperwork to move, staff to train and the worry of how a new system will work in practice. At Leafnotes, we believe that transition should feel manageable, with the right support at every stage.

Over the past two months, I've had the pleasure of working closely with Charlotte and the team at Verus Care as they've moved to Leafnotes. Here's what that journey looked like.

Getting to know Verus

We first met with Charlotte on 18 August to discuss what Verus needed and agree on a plan leading up to go-live. On 2 September, I visited the service to meet three managers, demonstrate Leafnotes and learn more about how their teams worked.

We don't believe providers should have to change everything they do to fit new software. Working with Charlotte, we adapted case note topics, incident reports and care plan templates to reflect Verus's existing paperwork. The aim was to make the new system feel familiar from day one.

Training everyone, not just managers

Residential care teams work different shifts, so training needs to fit around them. We arranged three weekly sessions starting on 9 September, at no additional cost, to make sure every member of staff had the chance to attend.

We set up a demo profile so staff could practise completing case notes and forms rather than simply watch a presentation. Managers also learned how to manage staff accounts, roles and permissions. By the end of the three weeks, I'd met the whole team, heard their feedback and helped make further adjustments before go-live.

Going live, with support on hand

Verus went live on Monday 28 September. They could bring their existing care plans into Leafnotes without rewriting them from scratch, helping to make the changeover simpler. I visited on the day to answer questions and support the team in person.

There were a few bugs early on, as there can be with any new system. I'm pleased that every bug reported during this period was fixed the same day. We don't expect customers to work through issues on their own, especially in those first few weeks.

Support doesn't end at go-live

Following training, we sent four short follow-up emails with tips and reminders. We also created quick guides for support workers, printed copies for the homes and made them available through Leafnotes' Help & Support section.

Staff can also contact our support team directly from the platform, whether they have a question, need help or want to suggest an improvement. It's a simple way to get answers without adding everything to a manager's workload.

Feedback from Verus is also helping us shape what's next. We're developing a compliance feature to bring daily, weekly and monthly checks into one place, while our Click Learning integration lets managers see completed and outstanding staff training. We also filmed parts of the onboarding journey and look forward to sharing that soon.

One month on and looking ahead

At our recent 30-day review, it was lovely to hear Charlotte say she was "loving it" when talking about Leafnotes. After working closely with the team through the changeover, that feedback meant a lot.

We're now supporting Verus as they prepare to open a new children's home, making sure Leafnotes is set up around the service's needs ahead of its Ofsted visit.

For me, that's what successful onboarding comes down to: listening, adapting and being there when people need support. Thank you to Charlotte and everyone at Verus for being so open with their feedback. I'm excited to see where our partnership goes next.