to think that working in a care home actually meant caring?

[showmewine]

I have worked in a care home part-time for nearly a year. The shift pattern fits around me being a SAHM mum, I do one 12 hour overnight shift a week. I thought that working in a care home meant actually caring for people but this has been a bit of a rude awakening....I get spoken to like i am a piece of sh*t both by senior staff and by my colleagues, everyone who works there is terrified of losing their job, we are constantly understaffed, ridiculous rules are made and then changed at the last minute and three times in the past month i have left the shift and cried, i have senior staff watching my every move and everytime i make a decision i am told it was the wrong thing to do....
Was i just really naive to think i could make a difference?

can i post something completely unrelated here? being as i am home with DS and a bit bored....

i don't see many men on a day to day basis hehe DH works away

SO i noticed that it has been a different postman for a few weeks....until today....when Postman Pat was back and what did i go and say to him before i could stop myself 'oh we really missed you around here the other postman just didn't provide the same level of service'

CRINGE or what?
my friend said it wasn't cringe-y at all
i am the only daft moo that thinks that is a cringe-y statement?!!

That's what I was hoping for, but my lady doesn't have much money, and persuades me to replace her knicker elastic rather than buy her new knickers!

Sorry my last post was @ showmethewine

Ah I don't think that's too cringey (maybe a little bit ... ) I expect he was glad to be appreciated.

spikeycow I think some horrible care workers were horrible to start with, and are doing it because it's the only job they know/can get, and for the money (not that it's the greatest). Others I think started off caring about the people they're supposed to care for, but got ground down and burnt out by the hours, the conditions, the thanklessness of it. You see it in nursing and midwifery too - years of working with suffering and people get desensitised. Compassion fatigue, sort of thing. I think the saddest is the second type, when they were probably kind people once, and now they're degrading and mocking the people they once wanted to help.

i was going to show this thread to my DH whatever possessed me to start writing about the postman ARG

I worked in a care home for a month or so and boy! did I work. But like it has been said, it is far too regimented and little consideration, if any, is given to the residents.

I am now a care worker in the community and visit people in their own homes and help them with washing and dressing and getting breakfast, or lunch.... It is much better and very rewarding.

I love it. It is very different to anything I have ever done before and although I only have about 30 minutes per person, all of my service users are very understanding if I am late because someone has needed more of my attention and assistance.

So, just a thought, you might like to consider that :)

I completely agree with the poster who suggested 'private' caring in people's homes.

I used to do this through a nursing agency (as well as HCA shifts in hospitals and care homes) and it was great. The clients were usually frail elderly ladies in huge, posh, old fashioned houses with crazy plumbing and weird cookers.

Also, I would suggest looking for care work in hospices, charity run homes for specific illnesses (worked in one for Huntingdon's Disease which was the most amazing place) and nursing homes which are still NHS rather than privately run/owned.

I worked in a care home when I was a teenager. I was an unpaid volunteer but did the same job as the staff.

The home was brilliant. It only had 14 residents and I really enjoyed working there. I would like to go there when I get old. (Niddsley in Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire).

When I became 18 I applied for various caring jobs (part-time during uni term time & full-time in summer)

I was offered a job in 1 care home for the elderly that seemed nice but the staff:resident ratio was not brilliant & it was minimum wage. I was surprised that I could get more for cleaning or doing easy office work than for caring for someone's elderly relative.

I turned the job down and took a job supporting adults with learning difficulties in various residential homes and in their own homes. It was much better paid and I was almost always working 1:1 with clients.

OP if you want to do a job where you can care & are treated better may I suggest going into caring for adults with learning difficulties or trying to find a care home for the elderly that has a better staff:resident ratio.

I wish I hadn't read this thread

my dad is in a care home,he has dementia

I visit once a week, he is often terrified of being beaten up, I hope this is something from his past.

going off to worry about him even more than usual now....

Hello

I would like to stress that where I work the level of care is good. By good i mean that people's needs are met. There is no violence or verbal abuse of residents of any sort otherwise i would not have continued to work there.

I hope that puts peoples minds at ease.

fruitshoot ((HUGS)) It's hard isn't it. The thing with dementia is that it gets to a stage where even if you otherwise could care for them at home, it's just not safe to do so :( Are there 'visiting times' or can you pop in when you want to? Do you go at regular times or do you vary it?

I guess if you wanted to, you could post the name of the Home on here and you never know, one of our lovely posters might work there - that would be nice :)

the home is in Chelmsford. We didnt have much choice of where he went as despite looking round several he was thrown out of the one we chose after 2 days as they couldn't cope with his behaviour and this one was the only one with the 'facilities' to cope with him.
I can visit whenever I want, Usually go on a Sunday but do sometimes go on a Saturday and sometimes in the week to take him for doctor/dentist appointments. Its much further away than I would have liked but I am loathe to move him again.
He isn't happy but then he wasn't happy at home or anywhere else for that matter.

sorry have rather diverted from original thread subject now.

my mum worked in care homes after having children and worked up from auxillary to manager - BUT she left about four homes on the way because she wasn't happy with the way they treated the residents.

i feel your pain , i have worked as a care assistant on and off for ten years , i frequently get grief off the other staff because i feel a person should be allowed to stay up as long as they like and should be allowed to have a lie in whenever they feel like it not forced into bed at six and dragged out of it at five. i also get wrong when i spend some time talking to residents when i have done my jobs , worst of all is i get berated for taking too long helping the clients get dressed , i dont think its right to speedily dress an arthritic ninety year old without any eye contact or conversation
but because of this im often dragged into the managers office because staff have complained im too slow, i went into this job wanting to make a difference to people but it is very hard a lot of private organisations dont care and a lot of council run homes are closing. if staff were paid more treat better and homes were more careful about who they employ things could be much better, if i had a pound for everytime i have heard im only doing this for the money i would be a rich lady

I'm afraid that's socialism for you. Boxes, memos, LCD, social organisation, fear, hate etc, you name it. I used to work for the NHS when it was really badly paid. I didn't care much as I was young. There were some real fucking monkeys there then, presumably there are far more now. I did care about the people tho' I really don't know if this is true but perhaps by paying people more, they get monetized, then don't give a fuck about the job only the money? I don't suggest this is the case as I don't have an opinion but it appears as wages have risen, care and values have dropped. What do you think?

I took the coward's way out and got a job as a lone one-to-one worker.

I could not BEAR the way 'my' last home treated people. Like you say, put to bed at 6, got up at 5. It's just fucking WRONG and if you don't do it you'll get sacked.

Which is what happened.

But they vary. the one before that, the manager used to drop in at all times and if someone was in bed before 7 without hving specifically requested it, she would have bawled the staff responsible out of the building (in front of EVERYONE) and sacked them in the doorway. I only saw her do it once, and my God it was good to watch.

She was a very kind woman. She sadly passed away this year but she was lovely.

Care and values have dropped because the staff are overworked and underpaid and that is the shittiest thing.

Nobody cruel starts work in a care home when they can get the same money doing something 20 times easier. People become callous because it's 'get callous or have an aneurism'.

As a senior, I was responsible for medication, insulin, health and safety, first aid, cooking tea for 29 people, organising all the other staff, training new staff, dealing with complaints, 'cleaning up' the deceased, comforting their relatives, answering the phone, filling out the paperwork, calling an ambulance, remembering food likes and dislikes (on the spot, you can't leaf through notes ever five minutes), labelling clothing, organising taxis, phoning for cover staff and on top of that I had the normal care duties .... the list actually does not end. I used to have nightmares about screwing up.

And I did it for 20 pence an hour above the minimum wage.

Yep colditz, that is shit. I was talking about the NHS tho' So why did you do it?
I met a lot of people in the late 90s in London who worked in "care" who basically were either psychos, losers or brickies. Why were they there? I must admit it, I didn't probe too deeply at the time.

I worked as a care assistant in the most awful home a few years ago. I was so glad when I was advised by my doctor to give it up as it was contributing to ante-natal depression and risking my health (I was being sent to deal with people with MRSA and other infections without the proper equipment or infection control training).

Even now I still think about that place. One old lady had a stroke and was violent because she was unable to make herself understood easily. No one else wanted to deal with her, but she was so so lovely if you just explained to her what was happening and took the time to listen. There was just no time though in general though, every resident got ten minutes in the morning and in that time we had to clean their rooms/empty their pottys, make their beds, dress them, wash them, take them to breakfast and put away their washing. They had to sit at the breakfast table until we got everyone up and then we changed aprons and made the breakfast. It was one care assistant for 6 people. On occasion it was one care assistant to 12 people. It was more important to have a made bed (set process that took three minutes) than a washed and dressed resident.

Everyone had to be up by 9 and be in bed by 9 so we could hoover all the common areas and clean the kitchens and bathrooms, the only exception was the mother in law of the manager who was allowed to get up when she chose and to have breakfast in bed. No choice of reading material, tv, books. No respect for clothes or possessions, there was a common pool of clothes and name labels were ignored. One old lady had all her little figurines and photo frames smashed accidentally by a hungover assistant and was told off for having 'something so dangerous' in her room.

Residents were allowed no individuality because there was no time to allow them this. None of them ever went out unless one of us had the time to take them out into the tiny garden. It was awful and by the time I was four months pregnant I was weeping every day and totally miserable. I hope it has improved since.

Oh Ding... that is awful

I get so frightened when I think about my frail old age.

I know lunar I so wish I had had the strength to complain and do something about it at the time. By the time I was mentally stronger I had a one year old and had moved abroad.

I think it was a pretty bad place though, I know there are nicer ones. My nan is in one that isn't perfect but is much much nicer than the one I worked in. Mind you, she has dementia and in her mind has been on a cruise ship for the last year, which sounds good to me.

The caring profession is the most UNcaring profession in many cases especially to their staff!
We used to have one old dear who spent much of her time shouting 'You wouldn't let a dog live like this' and she was right!!!
So sad people are treated like this. I need to get back in to the workforce but I am so loathe to do my return to nursing course because I know that staffing levels are going to be awful NHS and private.

The vast majority of people who go and certainly those who stay working in care are kind and professional .The problem is the CHRONIC staff shortage.With 3 people looking after say 30+ residents , some of those requiring 2 staff to mobilise, there just isn't enough time.I would hate anyone reading this to think that nowadays bullying and abuse in care homes is rife because that certainly is NOT the case :-)

I'd hope OP isn't still working there now after seven years ;)