Care assistant staff need more help

the above article is a reflection of the aged care crisis in australia . . .the frustration I feel as an aged care worker is sometimes over whelming. There is little or no support from management and as mentioned above abuse of staff by residents "is part of the job" and as nurses we are expected to wear it. I have noticed that the work load in the last 2 years has doubled as residents age in place. In my opinion they residents are not receiving the care they require as staff are just busy. I feel that no one is listening. Do aged care nurses have rights . . .. couldnt find any thing about it on the net.

I have read all the info on this site and am in total agreement with most of it. I will be going to London very soon to discuss, with a large care agency, the whole issue of staff levels and abuse in care homes and would be interested to get a group together to campaign on this issue. If it takes me five or ten years to get the Government to listen, I am happy to work at it but need help, support and brains to do this. Please let me know how like-minded people can work together on this. I have been a volunteer in a nursing home for five years and have seen most things.... sadly it has been a very disturbing experienc.

As a care assistant in a home for the elderly I entirely agree with the above comments. I feel so sorry for many of the residents where I work, despite claims that the home has activities, outings etc. most of the old people are left to vegetate because the owners do not employ people to carry out one to one activities with them. Care staff have not got the expertise or time to spend with individual residents to encourage them to preserve their fast disappearing mental skills. An hour of bingo and a quiz twice a week for about a quarter of the residents is not sufficient.

We have little training in dementia care yet most of our residents have various forms of dementia. Most staff have been at the receiving end of violent residents. It can take months to get someone re-assessed and a more suitable place found. Don't forget a care home is much cheaper than a nursing home or unit for the elderly mentally infirm so some families and social services prefer to leave unsuitable people with us for as long as possible.

The problem is that no-one really knows what to do with our aging population
when they need care, both mental and physical. Also how do we pay the high financial cost of really individual care to suit each persons needs. We can feed, wash, toilet and dress them and keep them alive as long as possible - that's our job, we can manage it with minimum staffing levels so make money for the home's owners. If society wants more who will pay?

My husband and I own a 15 bed residential care home in suffolk and we are finding it diffcult to recruit new staff, we have always paid over the minimum wage yet still we have this problem. Our existing staff are quite rightly getting fed up of covering long hours and the manager and myself are having to regularly pitch in to help out over and above our normal working hours. We would like to increase the wages for our staff but do not get enough money from our local authority, we have a few private clients but they seem far and few between in our area. We struggle with the new holiday entitlement 5.6 weeks as staff levels still have to be maintained which means we are paying out twice when a staff member is on holiday. In our case we have never been in this business for the money, if we were then we would have sold up years ago but it has got to the point now where there is just about enough money to cover the costs with a little in reserve for new equipment or emergencies. We haven't had a proper holiday in over 7 years and our car is over 10 years old but our priority is our wonderful residents, a smile of gratitude from them means everything and we do have some loyal staff that have been with us since day one. We do think that a little more understanding from the government regarding the small care home owner is required, maybe in some form of holiday pay relief. Gripe over.........that's better

I work in a 50 room nursing home, and lately staff numbers have fallen due to being over worked, under paid, having no support from managers. So to compensate that the rest of the staff have to work 13-15 hour shifts, often working through our half-hour non-paid break,
standards there are slipping and the residents aren't getting the best care, even if we run around trying to do everything we possibly can sometimes it just isn't possible then get called into the managers office for not doing something, whilst all the time we're spending in the office we're just sat thinking we could be out there now trying to carry on with our work!!
the owner of the private home pay's us mininum wage whereas he's employed his friend as *activity organiser* and no word of a lie he will sit in the same chair for hours playing on his phone/computer thing or if the residents are lucky he will put a dvd (of his choice) on
only during inspection will he organise something, he he will get paid a thousand pound every month regardless of how many hours he's worked.
these things are driving me away from the job I once loved, and it will never change, i've tried everything, meetings, 1-2-1 talks, even putting it in writing that things need to change, the only thing I can change now is my job.

I have no idea what kind of places the people below have seen. I run a small 16 bed residential care home in northern england. I have had 1 holiday in 7 years, unlike my staff who go on holiday every year. they get 5.6 weeks break every year, paid, I am unlucky if I get more than 7 days off in an entire year.
Private residential homes have been closing for years in large numbers, because we simply work non stop and make very little money. If you live in the south of england, it is easier to sell your residential home to a developer to convert into flats.

The simple problem is that people seem to view the idea of carehomes run as a business, especially if tjhey are social workers, as wrong. The reason why there aren't enough staff is that councils pay such low rates to look after elderly people. We can't afford high wages. At the same time they subsidise local authority care homes, who can then afford high wages. I train my staff and they get poaches by local authority care homes.

If the local authority overspends the council pays, if I overspend, I pay.

The real cost of running a residential care home is at least 700 pounds each week. Anything less and the care will suffer. ( of course I don't get that, which is why I haven't been on holiday much in the last few year)

If you want it cheaper, big vast care facilities run like instiutions with school food quality slop will be the result

by the way, most care facilties legally have to be around 23 degrees celsius. this is very hot to work in, but any cooler and the elderly are uncomfortable. Trust me, with the cost of gas and electricity, I'd love to turn the heating down

The manager described in your post deserves to be sacked for such an appalling attitude. Any creep who believes that physical abuse is "all part of the job" is not fit to run any undertaking, let alone one dealing with some of the most vunerable members of society.

However, private enterprise is run for a profit and whilst Governments allow care homes, schools, hospitals and even prisons to be run by the private sector then you will always have these vultures around.

I run a small training company providing English language classes for overseas care stazff in homes and domiciliary care, so I know how much these staff give and how little reward they get. It is not just in financial terms either; if managers would only give more in the way of appreciation and also make more effort to treat their staff as part of the team they could do a lot to raise morale. We sometimes find that the Englsih class is the one opportunity to let off steam about how unappreciated they are! I MUST add that there are certain homes where this is not the case and where foreign staff are appreciated and treated like the professional, caring individuals they are.

Well, it just goes to show that with only 8 comments, where homes for the elderly rate in society doesn't it? Nothing will ever change because no no one really cares about it, despite what they may say, as long as the people who need the care aren't seen then society can assume that they don't exist. Bad Show.

P.S, I do or shall I say did start working here as a temporary job till I qualified in a trade and I did love it. I give and used to give as much of my time to a patient as possible.

With staff cuts taking effect around the NHS, staff and visitors being charged extortionate amounts to park, staff and visitor meals being overpriced, you have to ask yourself where this money is actually going. It is clear though that staff morale and patience is going down the drain.

Finally, I would never be able to word a gripe very well at all. I'm a male support worker for one of the newest, biggest and supposedly best hospitals in the midlands. Staff are forever moaning to one another and higher management, but nothing is done. I work on a ward with 48 beds, split into 4 areas of 12 beds.

All our patients around this time of year are elderly patients shifted from nursing homes and their family homes because they want a break....all care and regularly incontinent, always medical patients instead of the surgicals our ward SHOULD be specialising in.

In each area there is only 1 nurse, usually busy having to make up the IV antibiotics or drips, writing out their reports on each patient for the day, having to walk around with doctors and dispensing alloted drugs...all of this 3 times a shift....heaven forbid they have a very poorly patient that requires their attention every10minutes.

Then there is the other member to this duo, a support worker, I have to take blood pressure readings 3 times a shift..36 times in total of about 5 mins per patient at each sitting, washing every patient, feeding nearly every patient, tending to catheters and having to change each patient atleast 4 times a day.

Given one patient change will require 2 staff and about 6 - 10mins....you can see where I was heading with this. It is as you say, understaffed, underpaid, overworked and facing the possibility of disciplinary action should you recieve a complaint.

Until the governments agree to minimum staffing levels..nothing will change for both the carers and their clients.
I worked in an aged care hostel where it was the norm to try to look after 20 clients, plus more if another carer or other staff were away. In the facility at one time, we had five staff on work cover and still no replacements. The company has been sued twice and yet nothing changes.