Human Rights Act and care in the home

Today, another report has highlighted poor standards of care received by many people in their own home. Whilst this is in part a sad indictment of some individuals or organisations which simply do not have the dignity, respect and care of their clients truly at their heart; in the vast majority of cases I expect it is due to the myriad of pressures faced by providers of home care. Read on for some obvservations from Agincare Live In Care’s MD...

If you follow these links you will see some more headlines and analysis from the BBC and Community Care about some new findings about care services provided in people’s homes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15836500; http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/23/11/2011/117797/human-rights-a....
If you look at Agincare live-in care’s contacts page you will see the latest inspection report of Agincare Live In Care’s service and on our home page are the results of our latest client survey. Together these demonstrate that we provide a service which is compliant with all regulatory requirements and deliver a high degree of client satisfaction; although no-one can guarantee a mistake will never be made these reports give some peace of mind.
It is very distressing for people to keep experiencing and hearing about the poor standards of service reported in the news today. Various reasons are given for this and certainly there cannot be any excuse for poor training or support to care staff, and although the rates of pay possible in social care do not adequately reflect the professionalism and skills of social care staff, nor is what is paid a reason for poor care. All these things are completely within a care providers ability to resolve through adequate management, training and on-going monitoring and support.
The aspects of care which are less talked about are the myriad of tasks and duties the care worker has which have little to do with the client and their needs. For example, completing attendance logs noting what the care worker has done during his/her visit; phoning in to an electronic system to confirm s/he has arrived and when s/he leaves. As local authorities seek to cut their Adult Social Care budgets there are increasing numbers of 15 minute calls being purchased at ever decreasing prices and these administrative tasks as well as the care services are expected to be completed in this time; it begs the question ‘how low can it go’ – to my mind price cannot realistically be forced lower and cutting the time available to undertake care simply puts ever more pressure on care staff and, although not generally considered in these articles, it causes actual distress to care workers as in the vast majority of cases care staff do actually care and want to spend time caring.
Sarah Leskinen-Keel Managing Director 22.11.11