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.

@Saz12

Care work is never going to suit someone who’s in it for the £££. A decent pay rate, a fair contract (hours, overtime, days off, length of shifts, training entitlements, sick pay, pension, holiday entitlement, compassionate leave, maternity, sabbaticals...) all needed. But the biggest is to have enough time to do the job properly- to encourage independence, help with diet/lifestyle, social contact etc. That’s what good carers want to do - not to nip in, haul someone out /in to bed, throw some good at them and ram medication in, sort out incontinence accidents, with a weekly shower if lucky.

This, absolutely this. And recognition that the reason for a lot of bad care is due to lack of resources, not lack of will or bad attitude from the majority of carers. At the moment 9 times out of 10 the care staff take the blame for poor care after being put in impossible positions, they take the flack from the service users, the families and then management and providers when complaints are made. They are written off as unskilled and poorly educated and therefore their concerns aren't listened to, they're blamed for systematic failures, painted as inadequate when most of the time it's the system, lack of resources and lack of time that have led to poor care being delivered.

I used to work in care homes as a nurse, but the conditions just became worse and worse. It's even harder for care staff.

A care home near me has just closed its nursing beds because they can't recruit RNs. They're blaming the agencies because they pay more and you can set your own work pattern.

Can you blame people? care work is so much responsibility and stress for rubbish pay and benefits. Many home carers are on zero hour contracts and leave the sector for more secure work and better pay. It is a shame, as many people do enjoy care work but its just not worth it at the moment.

Huge shortages in my area to the point where they are now ‘working together’ and district nursing teams are now taking on care packages in the interim (I use this term loosely as as soon as they hear DN team are going in they don’t bother sourcing a care package). This is to the detriment of end of life patients, Of which we are seeing a lot more since the pandemic, who can now not get their wish of dying at home as we do not have the capacity due to taking on these care packages

I work for the nhs in a hospital and a lot of the housekeepers, nursing assistants and healthcare support workers are ex care home staff.

Although the NHS is also on its knees if you join the bank in a hospital it's better money per hour with enhanced rates for evenings and weekends, good holiday allowance and the nhs pension and although staffing is stretched there are more benefits to be had.

My friend worked in a nursing home until recently. It was minimum wage day or night and they were so shorted staffed it was dangerous - buzzers all going off and 2 members of staff trying to help 12-15 patients all with dementia. She left in the end it just became un-manageable and she reported them to the quality care commission.

It's a terrible situation and I really feel sorry for people working in this sector

The Tory's NI rise was heralded (by Johnson) as "solving social care once and for all". The first thing Liz Truss will do is reverse it.
Shameful excuse for a government.

We have a son with autism who has just left school. We were making plans with a support agency to provide respite which will gradually increase to become supported living in 2-3 years time. A team from the agency visited him at home and school to get to know him and all was going well. Yesterday I found out that the team have been relocated to other clients because of a massive staff exodus, so all this preparation time ( and money!) has been wasted and we have to start again.
Meanwhile my dad has just moved into a nursing home. His own home isn’t suitable for someone who can’t walk. The regular staff are great but every weekend they have a skeleton agency staff on and it’s frankly dangerous. They have a number of confused residents ( including my dad) who are regularly trying to get up and walk and most of the time there’s not even anyone in the lounge keeping an eye on them - they’re just passing through. Because they’re so stretched and don’t know the residents, there’s no warmth or compassion there. It’s dire.