Care home combination locks

At my DM’s (dementia-only) care home you had to be buzzed in and out by a member of staff - only they had the passcode.
If not, there would have been residents getting out all too often, getting lost, run over - it wasn’t far from a busy road - goodness knows what. As it was you had to be very vigilant - there was often someone lurking near the door hoping to slip out with a visitor.

I will add that it was a lovely care home, purpose built for dementia, with extremely kind, caring staff, and there was a large garden where residents were free to go at any time.

I suspect the posts are all the same because there is only one obvious answer to your question. You’ve asked a question, if you’re not happy with the replies you can just stop reading the thread rather than being rude.

So this is why my Dad’s care home constantly ask visitors to be patient and kind to staff. ☹️
I need to wait to be let out of two doors. Most residents have dementia. It is their home and it keeps them safe. There are plenty of fire exits that lead straight out into secured garden.

It's really quite well known that care providers are struggling to recruit staff, not so long ago there were headlines about providers handling back contracts to council's that they couldn't honour because they lacked the staff to provide the care. Skills for care reported that 10.9% of care vacancies are unfilled earlier this year, people can't get care when they need it.
So quite often it is an either/or situation for those doing the job in the moment, and as pp said if money is going to be spent, it's better spent on another care assistant to deliver better care for the vulnerable people living in the home, not on someone solely charged with making sure that a visitor gets in/out at the time they want without needing to wait.
In an Ideal world there'd be enough staff to deliver good care in a timely fashion and someone to let visitors in and out, unfortunately in social care we're far from an ideal world and staff have to prioritise and that priority should always be the residents.

Visitors waiting 10 minutes to be let out is the very least of the problems in social care.

I would rather they employed another carer, or at least pay the existing ones a decent wage, than employ a receptionist- even if that does mean waiting 10 minutes!

Unfortunately for the visitors that may struggle with this, care staff are giving care and cannot just stop in the middle of procedures, or rush people through them to let someone out.

I wonder how you would feel if your vulnerable relative were waiting or were left in a potentially dangerous or undignified way so staff could go and let someone out? That's far more unacceptable than someone waiting 10 minutes to be let out.

@Maverickess It's not an either/or situation. You are talking about a place that is woefully understaffed. There should be a receptionist or someone tasked solely to receive and let out visitors/ deliveries and so on. If there isn't a receptionist, then the care home need more staff because waiting a couple of minutes for someone is fine but 10 minutes really isn't.

That's basic fire precautions. You don't want a fireman risking his life searching through a fire-ravaged building for a visitor who left an hour ago.

@viques that must be it.

At MIL's care home you had to coordinate the code and a push button on the opposite side of the door. I very much doubt any of the high needs residents had the capacity to recall both a code and that short sequence of operations. Even so, I wouldn't want to be responsible for ensuring one of them didn't slip out while both DH and I were going through the exit. They don't know which visitors are going to be responsible, and which ones might shrug and say 'not my problem' if Harry from Room 18 sneaks out while they're fumbling for their car keys. There are a lot of stupid people about. You must have noticed that, OP.

The OP responses to the replies on this thread are insulting and disrespectful.

In some homes with very vulnerable residents then it is important that the door release codes are kept confidential. Both from at-risk residents and well-meaning but misguided friends and family who might write the code down for their loved one so they can "pop out for a bit of fresh air". Instead of being livid and accusatory about this, I would be enormously reassured as a family member of a resident.

I expect the real reason they kept the OP waiting for 10minutes is that they couldn’t bear for them to leave. The staff wanted to bask in the radiance of their good humour and generous spirit for a few minutes longer, as they recognised how the atmosphere and spirit of the entire home, for both staff and residents, was lifted and enhanced like an invigorating ray of spring sunshine by the OPs presence . And sadly they knew that on the OPs departure the good feeling would slowly fade to just a faintly remembered , though much cherished, glow.

Wtaf is wrong with you ? If your this bored just go to bed ffs lol weird

Am sorry but using a MN favourite…I mean this gently ,your parent and the other residents get priority over you having to wait 10 mins . Their safety is the priority and am sure you would agree that if your parent or resident were to leave the home unaccompanied and at risk you would be the first to complain/worry etc about their well-being and publicly go to local media !
If your parent was being helped with personal care,RN giving your parent their medication and not being distracted/ drug error ,carers checking that a resident is swallowing safely ,surely ,you would rather a relative being inconvenienced for a few minutes. It really is not that hard to understand.

Maybe actually read the posts OP. You clearly don't care about patient safety or the reason for locks. You also claim to be educated, yet have clearly missed your own dreadful grammar on more than 1 occasion in your posts 😂

Your very opinionated 🙄

So they’ll always be someone to let you out then?
You started this. No one is ‘griping’. Merely pointing out that there are excellent reasons for you having to be let out by a staff member. Good reasons that protect the person you’re visiting.

Oh and I volunteer in a school too - it is just the same there but a fob thing that gets scanned that the staff carry.

I visit care homes most days in my line of work. I can't think of one that doesn't have a key pad to get out. Never even crossed my mind that it was a deprivation of my liberty. I just ask a member of staff to let me out, and they do. It is for the safety and security of residents. Many who lack mental capacity could potentially abscond if there was no keypad.

So why didn’t you ask her to let you out instead of waiting 10 minutes?

This.

The locks are there for the safety of the residents. God forbid OP should have to wait to get out of the place

The code can’t be shared outside of a ‘need to know’ basis for two reasons.

1. To keep vulnerable residents in
2. To keep unwanted visitors out

The staff have no idea who a visitor might share the code with and what they might be planning to do with the information, so the rule has to be that nobody else can have the code. I visit care homes when I do a district nursing shift and even I don’t know any of the codes!

So there is always someone on reception - yes or no?

The care home is not there for your convenience, staff gave work to do.