"Home Care in the UK in 2015"

[chenrezig]

A while back when I was considering care work I signed up for a newsletter for "Able Care" it comes out each Thursday and today's has something a bit more interestting -I thought maybe it would make for an interersting thread - all comments welcome

"Home Care in the UK 2015

Revealed: more than 500,000 home care visits last less than five minutes.
Spending on care for people aged 65 and over has fallen by a fifth in England over the last 10 years, an analysis by the BBC shows.
The slow death of Britain’s home care system.
Fifteen-minute slots 'force choice between going to the toilet and being fed'.

These are a selection of headlines in the media over the past few weeks. Such headlines are accompanied by comments from government ministers, past and present again saying that it is unacceptable, the government opposition agreeing and telling the public things will change.

In April we have a new Care Bill being introduced corresponding with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) bringing in an updated method of inspecting home care in order to protect and put elderly and disabled people at the heart of their inspection process.

Sanctioned training courses are proliferating that can ‘train’ on up to 50 care subjects in a week or less

Care certificates can be ‘earned’ from online training courses.

Is any of this really going to make any difference, is it acceptable? Do we really believe that in a year’s time headlines such as those above will be banished forever?

Has the care system fundamentally moved away from understanding what caring for a person is all about?

Look up in any dictionary the word 'caring' and you will see that it means being compassionate, thoughtful, kind, attentive and considerate.

In 2015 as the above headlines show, home care has for thousands of elderly and disabled people moved away from what is meant to be provided for them. It is failing.

How can we begin to provide a system that does actually care for people who need to be cared for?

First and foremost it has to be funded appropriately. It is not acceptable for government to blame local councils; it is not acceptable to blame the thousands of home care organisations who are pushed down to the lowest price per hour to provide contracted care services.

Care inspections of home care agencies can take place without a client being visited. Care inspections can take place without a care worker observed whilst he/she works. Telephone calls are not sufficient, they will not show if care is being carried out in the way it should be, will not prove that a person is being cared for safely and with dignity.

To provide care for a person is not a science, it needs kindness, compassion, common sense and appropriate training with reference to an individual’s need for care.

However, common sense with reference to what people actually want from a home care service, seems to have been slowly but surely filtered out of the care system. It has been replaced by what officialdom seems to think people want and then in addition impose on them services such as five minute visits that they certainly do not want.

Common sense, understanding and additional funding needs to be re-introduced into home care to give our older and disabled people a service that we can be proud of and if we are ourselves in the position of needing care, be happy to receive. "

[wendy]

most interesting to read this

[maureenho]

[Rosalind]

go90 than999

[Honey]

go90 than999
I agree with Maureens post re on line certificates.

[chenrezig]

Definitely hands on training Mo -no substitute

[annie]

I agree, how can you learn to care properly for people if the course is on-line?