To think that most people are not aware of the dire staffing crisis in social care.

[TravellingSpoon]

I work in social care and have amazing colleagues across a range of services, however every single one without fail is short staffed, some dangerously so and they are not able to recruit staff to fill the tens of thousands of vacancies across the whole sector.

Its a perfect storm of staff burnout, low wages, covid, mandatory vaccinations and brexit.

I work in the community and our team is covering care provider handbacks as well as our normal caseload. These are cases that care providers just can't cover due to staffing issues.

Another concern is that some companies are becoming so desperate they are employing people who are not fit for the job. They don't have the skills or the right attitude for the job.

I love the job I do and couldn't imagine working in another sector, but to me it feels like its on the brink, and it never gets the same sort of love that the NHS gets, the handwringing and the campaigning.

Goodness this makes depressing reading. My mum may have to go into a home. She's always intended to go into a private home instead of come to live with me or my sister, if the time comes. (She did the same with her dad. Also she's on the spectrum and likes her own company - she finds being around us, with all the busyness and noise of the DC too much after a few hours).

But, are you saying that this option should be avoided at all costs? Maybe I should speak to her about reconsidering this plan?

If you want change, you really need to be speaking to this lot ....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4457399-to-ask-would-you-still-vote-tory-after-everything-boris-has-done-and-if-so-why

^Blame the government for cutting local authorities funding. And pushing them to private providers who make promises of providing cheap care.

Our council tax never covered the cost of local authority services (which includes social care) - aside from a few exceptions - and central government provided the rest. Until the austerity measures came in and cut funds. Then did a neat trick of blaming authorities.^

You're so right, @Iggly, and so many people don't realise and blame the councils.

Local authority funding was, at one time, 90% funded by central government grants and business rates. That has been cut and cut and is now only 50%. And I believe it will be cut still further.

They are not allowed to borrow money, and most councils that had financial reserves have now used them up. The amount by which they can raise council tax is limited by central government.

All they can do to balance the books is cut budgets which means cutting services. The extent to which they can increase charges is very limited. And they have to balance the books as they're not allowed to run a deficit, either!

I can see more and more councils issuing "Section 114 notices", the LA equivalent of a bankruptcy, over the next few years. When that happens, they are only allowed to carry out a very narrow range of functions and the shit will really hit the fan.

@feelsobadfeltsogood
If you don't mind my asking, where did you find private carers for your grandad? Is there a website/company I can look into? Future planning for a parent who is not going in a care home, ever. I'll need back up and intend to get private help.
If it's too 'location specific' and you'd rather not reveal your location - understood. Often these things come about by recommendation of individuals and word of mouth. You sound like a lovley family and I wish your grandad well.

I didn’t know OP thanks for the information. I did hear that visa restrictions had been loosened to allow foreign nationals to work in this profession- that will take time to facilitate.

@newnamenewyear

Goodness this makes depressing reading. My mum may have to go into a home. She's always intended to go into a private home instead of come to live with me or my sister, if the time comes. (She did the same with her dad. Also she's on the spectrum and likes her own company - she finds being around us, with all the busyness and noise of the DC too much after a few hours).

But, are you saying that this option should be avoided at all costs? Maybe I should speak to her about reconsidering this plan?

I would.

One option that some people I know are considering is for both generations to sell their properties and buy one big house that can be extended or rearranged to create an annexe for the parent(s).

Staffing crisis in social care has been in the news a lot in last 10 years, and was a talking point in 2016 referendum... people just don't pay attention or want to remember.

To make conditions acceptable to staff in care homes they'd have to charge residents more I guess.

My grandad requires careers. It was surprising to see the process, private companies providing a ‘service’ unable to even provide a simple rough time in advance for when they are arriving - he has four a day.
I really feel for the carers unsociable hours , driving trying to then find parking! And the pay is shockingly low for the service they provide. To then deal with families expectations- we quite aware of what can be provided but didn’t stop my interfering Aunt deciding to criticise them and being just plain rude to the carers causing them to cancel the contract with my grandparents :(

It’s so hard as all my aunts & uncles still work full time jobs & have caring responsibility for grandchildren and/or live to get away. Then Grandad wouldn’t want any of them to provide the type of care that he now needs. Granny doesn’t want him to go into a home.

I didn’t realise (naively) how carers worked - I stupidly thought they were employed by NHS and was a pool of carers. Finding our it’s in fact a selection of private companies that can close and reopen with a new name. Especially if they have bad reviews! It doesn’t make sense and unless you are aware of it you don’t realise what’s going on.

^they live to far away not get away

I knew there were shortages but perhaps underestimated how bad. We definitely need to be paying carers more to make the job more attractive. It's a difficult and important job worthy of more than minimum wage

Completely agree op. I have worked in Nursing Homes for years..lots of different ones and they have all been run with the bare minimum of staff. Now it is horrendous.I now work in NHS and trying to get care packages for people to go home is a nitemare..we are a rural county as well.Then when a package is availabĺe we have had referrals back in because carers have not arrived.

Shouldn't have left the EU. Shouldn't have voted Tory. What the absolute fuck did people think was going to happen to care homes? We're going back 100 years as a country to survival only if you have money, and/or connections, and tough luck on the rest.

It's absolutely disgraceful and must be horrendous for individuals working in and reliant on care. But we as a nation asked for this. Particularly the old, and white men, who interestingly enough form the majority of Brexit voters www.statista.com/statistics/56 and Tory voters. yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/

I witnessed this myself for the first time last year when a loved one was at the end of his life (cancer). In the last weeks of his life he couldn’t be discharged from hospital for several weeks because there was a shortage of carers, so he spent much of his last weeks of life on a busy ward, with very little care and mostly alone due to strict visiting hours.

When he was finally discharged, the carers who turned up were newly recruited, had zero experience and hadn’t been briefed on his needs. It was a disaster. I felt sorry for them, to be honest, as they obviously just needed a job and had no idea what they were turning up to - a very, very sick man who couldn’t stand, feed himself, wash himself etc. They were like rabbits in a headlight and didn’t turn up after Day 2 .

He finally got a place in a hospice and died a few days later, thankfully well cared for and with loved ones close. But his last few weeks haunt me. The care just wasn’t there.

The company I work for has cut people's visit times to allow the staff to go to more people in a shift. It's awful as anyone who has done the job knows you never get enough tike with each person as it is. Losing staff due to burnout as well as those who are off sick or isolating. I've worked in care for 20 years and seen many staff shortages but never as bad as now

It's awful. I work with young disabled adults and have always been proud of the care & support opportunities in our area. Now, even the basics aren't available most of the time.

Families are under enormous strain, begging for support and there just isn't any. So many good providers are short staffed & some haven't been open to new referrals for years.

The social workers are on their knees, care providers are doing their best, young people and their families are being failed. 😢

Agree 1000%.
8 years in home care here, nvq 3 qualified.

In a month I will be leaving the sector.
It's the poor pay, calls being packed tighter and tighter with no time to give clients the time they need. Add to that inadequate travel time, 15 minutes to do a 25 minute drive, and asked why you're late when you get there.
It's the wear on your car, and on you too. It's all that and more.
My new job is days only. And boy am I ready for it.
Until carers are paid a decent wage and treated like humans not spaces on a rota to be crammed in this will only get worse.

@ThisIsStartingToBoreMe

Blame the greedy grasping money obsessed homecare company owners for taking on more clients than they can accommodate with the staff they've got.

The staff numbers aren't goi g to increase so the only thing to do is decrease the client numbers.

To be fair to them, we (local authorities) put massive pressure on them to pick up packages of care because if they don't, then we as the LA aren't fulfilling our statutory duty (the law is clear that lack of available provision is not an excuse not to provide support).

Where I work we have over 100 people waiting for care. These people sometimes have a bit of paid for care but need more, others have no care at all and are waiting weeks and weeks for care.

People are being discharged from hospital with no care because we can't provide it.

Care agencies with better rates of pay are not in a better position. We are currently utilising ALL cqc registered agencies, including those which charge almost double our usual rate, but they are are also struggling to find staff.

The amount of safeguarding referrals for inadequate care in care homes is increasing and the number of people being evicted from a care home because they "can't meet their needs" is also increasing, because of staffing issues.

I want out of social work because I can't see it getting better and people are already dying.

It’s a massive scandal.

We tried to engage carers privately for a terminally ill patient and there was nothing (nice area with great transport etc). I was utterly shocked. We did manage to get some care through a hospice and they were different every day and has less than 30m to get in and do everything- I have no idea how people alone cope. It used to be a job students would do the odd overnight shift (mainly sleeping and then morning duties when I knew people that did it) so it’s obviously either changed or students are not interested.

We’ve also looked for residential care for a relative with Autism/ vulnerable needs and it’s also impossible.

Yes lots of places seem to be run by faceless unaccounble companies who have no inclination or business in care?
They are allowed to cut every cost and treat staff like crap etc.

I don't know what the answer is without opening it all up and making it as transparent as possible with trip advisor style feedback.
Min rates of pay in care, on going training and innovation etc.

Oh and the bigger scandal issue forcing incredibly ill miserable terminally ill people to live long after they should have been allowed to die peaceful and in dignity.

Some people are aware but they seem not to care. The only quality of care isn’t even on the radar for many people.

I am more than aware. In the past I worked in paediatric complex care, we provided care in the family home and we were always running below full staffing capacity even then. Now I am living it as DH needs care and we are forever struggling as his carers are over worked and under staffed. Living the care crisis is hell and it will forever taint my memories of his last months of life. I know things won't get better and he is slowly dying and every day I feel I have failed him a little bit more.

Yanbu it’s scary

YANBU - had a meeting for DM two weeks ago, 15 people agree she needs 24/7 care - then social worker shrugged and said, it doesn’t exist .

She’s now living with her mother, 82, (who also needs care to be honest) - a carer comes round for 90 mins a day to make sure mum gets a wash at least .

Sister 28 is in supported living (autism, epilepsy, ID and mental health), they can’t get carers for her either so they’re now doing pyjamas and bedtime routine before dinner as no time otherwise - and can’t leave the house often at all as need 1:1 staff for that . What makes it worse is all of sister’s day services were stoped in March 2020 and council are saying are if they restart them they can no longer afford to run them except for the most profoundly disabled . So she’s spending her days doing nothing but watching TV indoors .