Care assistant staff need more help

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.

My gran ended up in a care home, my brother and I didn't want that to happen but that is another story; the place she went to was awful though and there was nothing I could do about it.

A similar point can be made for domicilliary care workers but what must not be forgotten is they work long hours for very low pay, this leads to great difficulty in recruiting. The otherside of that coin is if you pay better you attract the wrong sort of peolple to what is really a vocation.tricky for those of us needing to rely on carers most of which are excellent. The lack of people willing to be carers means those in the job become even more put upon as our population ages the problem will increase. Carers certainly deserve more money but local authorities won't pay it particularly conservative ones. It has to be said, wealthier people can deal direct with care providers and pay them more if they choose those on benefit have no such option even though they do contribute to the cost of their care through their meagre disability benefits.

I think most care homes are rubbish, My great Auntie was in one fora short time, and ended her days there. I noticed a huge deterioration in her very rapidly, but who can be surprised? There were to few staff to care for, and entertain the residents. All they do is plop them in front of the TV, in a room about 40 degrees centigrade, so they all fall asleep. No wonder they all slip downhill so fast with no conversation, or brain stimulation. To be fair, the taf were good, but they couldn't really dedicate enough time to any one person, and you culd see they wanted to. It's a rea shame, most staff are so caring, but there just aren't enough to go round.