Residential home care staff over worked and under paid
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Residential care home
When the needs of the clients aren't met, the staff on the front line usually have to shoulder the responsibility and at a time when they are only doing the best they can in a very difficult situation.
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Why are care assistants and nurses always blamed for poor care in residential care homes, when most of the time the bad care is delivered because the owners of these private homes do not provide enough staff.
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| 29-8-2010 | Hello to all, ex and current colleagues in spirit. At last a UK website which touches on the sore spot! Catherine is it?, you are right. We are not such a small army that we cannot make our voices heard: I know the fear of losing one's job, the need to keep it dictates every word and move, but so many of us are now truly unhappy with the system.
I was a residential 12 hrs night care, pay £6.41 an hour, no w/e enhancemenst. I left when the deputy decided that the night staff had it ever so easy, while the day staff were struggling. Ratio 2 of us NS for 16 residents to 4/5 and once a week 7 day-staff plus senior staff, manager and deputy.
I wwnt into the community, no paid travelling time, overlapping calls, a blind faith in ubiquity so I am 4 miles from one client but on paper already there...
My heart goes out to you, my anger and frustration - I shan't say now. | Magdala |
| 22-8-2010 | hi. I work in a care home of 26 residents with mostly advanced dementia, but I'm worried that we cannot offer the level of care required as in my eyes we are severely understaffed. Does anyone know of any reccomended staff / resident ratio.
Pleases help thanks. | tired and worried |
| 22-7-2010 | so sorry that should have ready "do a very hard job"
I'mn tired | anonymous |
| 22-7-2010 | People in paid jobs in residential homes go a very hard job for low wages and are greatly undervalued but they are care workers not carers.
Carers look after disabled friends or relatives for a very small benefit, usually 365 days a year with no holidays and not even bank holidays off.
I have not had a holiday or a night away from home for eleven years or a single complete day off in that time except when I was taken into hospital with a bleeding stomach ulcer. | anonymous |
| 22-7-2010 | Continued from below.................................................What was our reward? During an inspection we were 6 staff members down and when they looked further into the staffing they noticed it was a regular occurrence and also realised that we weren't just 'temporarily between managers' as had been stated - we hadn't had one for months! The result was a bed block and an 'amber light' (that means you have so long to change things before they give you a 'red light' and shut you down) the owners went wild and we were disciplined for misconduct - ie we hadn't lied to the inspectors! We were told that we were neglecting clients and the amber light was due to staffing issues - which were our fault. When I actually saw a copy of the inspection report (you can look them up online) I found out it was because we had no registered manager and the staffing level had fallen below national standard and was effectively illegal. Shortly after that I left, I loved the residents but I just could not give any more of myself and be treated like that. The problem was that because we coped to a certain degree and there was money rolling in each month, and our wages were a darn sight cheaper than a manager and deputy manager, they left it and left it, making more and more money as time went on while the poor clients suffered and the staff were worked into the ground. It's got to stop. | Ex carer |
| 22-7-2010 | I would be interested in starting some sort of campaign about this. I left care a while ago after almost having a complete nervous breakdown, 50% of the stress was directly due to work the other 50% indirectly - on the wages I earned I could not afford to break even to live and more hours = more stress. The home I worked in was large and run by a company that owned 2 other homes. We ran for over a year with no registered manager because each person they found was worse than the one before and got sacked or left because of the appalling state the place had been allowed to get into. The deputy manager took over for a while and then left because of a disagreement with the owners over increasing budgets to meet care needs. Most of the regular nurses left, fearing that one day the inspectors would walk in and they would lose their pins for running a unit severely understaffed. So we were left with agency and bank nurses and no manager at all for a while. It was left to senior care staff to basically run the place, unqualified and unpaid. We had to direct the bank and agency nurses to what they needed to do, admit new clients, deal with staff issues and complaints and that's just the start, as well as do our own jobs of looking after the clients and overseeing junior care staff if you were a senior. But I stuck by the clients and their families and tried to make things as right as possible, I went that extra mile and worked as much as I could, took paper work home with me, came in to meetings with clients families ans social workers on my day off and tried to keep the company going through a time of crisis. There were 4 of us, all trained to senior care level, which is to say we are like a duty manager, we deal with minor incidents and run 'the floor' on a shift to shift basis under the supervision of a trained nurse or manager, and we all did way above and beyond to keep the place afloat. | Ex carer |
| 21-7-2010 | I stumbled across this website and would like to add my opinion.
I have been working the retail sector for 18 years and had to change careers due to the recession. I am now a Business Development Manager for a Recruitment company. I source new contracts and supply temporary care assistants to residential care homes.
The reason why care homes use our service is that they cannot find suitable staff. Now here is the problem...
I find the staff, sometimes not qualified but they are willing to learn. HOWEVER, I have to pay the staff minimum wage because the cheap-skate care home owners dont want to pay more than £8.50 per hour. We have to pay our NI and other costs to keep the business running and are expected to be paid £8.50 per hour from the care home.
I would love to pay the care staff more but its getting rediculous that the care home owners are being so stingy when they know they NEED staff!!!
At the same time, we have to charge VAT as part of the Inland Revenues regulations because the care assistants are not directly under our supervision at the care home. Now try telling that to the Care Homes. They dont want topay vat.
I am disgusted at the attitude of care home owners/care managers who treat my staff with contempt! What do you expect if they are on minimum wage, working 12 hour shifts.
I am still new to the recruitment industry so I can still give an unbiased view of what I have seen so far. | razneer@gmail.com |
| 30-6-2010 | my mum has been in nursing home for seven months now gets no exercise at all she cant walk just sits in chair all day unless family take her out ? she just picks at food eats hardly anything hardly any conversation with any one but me . always think more should go on in these places to keep them allert mum hes got most of her facilties .iI think staff would have more time for clients if they were not short staffed all the time <when I visit my mum her appearance is terrible I have to tidy her up when I go in have complained but staff have no time to do anything with her hair especially, she is only in this care home because its near where I live and she seems to like it there and gets on with all the staff so thats what counts but its a shame clients worse than my mum should suffer all because of being short staffed and underpaid and work twelve hour shifts.. | allie |
| 19-5-2010 | You are so right, I couldn't have put it better myself and I am speaking as the daughter of someone who has spent 6 months in a nursing home. I now have my mother living with me and I have given up work and my home to give her the care she needs. I really feel for the staff who have to work in these care homes but more especially for the residents. She was paying nearly a thousand pounds a week and still not getting the care and mental stimulation she needed and deserved. Where did all that money go? We don't allow children to be treated like this so why the elderly? | Jac |
| 22-4-2010 | This is not only the private sector the so called charity run Care Homes are just as bad, especially when they employ cost cutting manager who earn over £40000 | anon |
| 12-4-2010 | Most of these comments are sadly true, I work as a deputy manager in a nursing home and I have witnessed first hand a lot of what is contained in the above post and posts which have followed. I would like to start a campaign too, I have worked in far too many care homes ran by large and small companies and the problems are always the same, understaffed, poor pay, unable to give good quality care to residents due poor staffing, and when an inspection comes along the owners get away with it and managers/nurses/care staff get the brunt of it. I know a nurse who worked a 14 hour shift with a slipped disc in his back and in severe pain - that nurse is me and they still expect me to run a nursing unit for 20 highly dependent residents with just myself and two care assistants. That's where the problem lies, most (not all) owners/registered providers of care are non-nurses/carers who cannot grasp dependency levels of residents and just see a person filling a bed, they have no regard for physical and mental health needs. | Markie |
| 14-2-2010 | 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. | shel |
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