Care home staff ratios

[ThunderFog]

If you have a relative in a care home, or work in one, can you share the carer:resident ratios.

My DER is in a residential care home which has 38 beds over 4 floors. At weekends there are 3 carers on duty. ie 1:12.

Sounds about right to me.
Horrifying, but most care homes pay minimum wage.
Even at weekends and overnight

That sounds really low for staffing. On the care homes website, have they published their safeguarding plans/ CQC reports etc…. Is there any reference in these documents?

There is nothing in CQC reports about staffing levels in terms of numbers, only a vague mention of patients' impressions.
@Mydogisagentleman when you say "about right" do you mean you think that's enough staff or that's what happens elsewhere?

No. That's very low. I work in adult social care quality and I would be horrified. I'd expect 1:6 as a bare minimum.

You can ask them if they use a dependency tool to judge their staffing. And staffing shouldn't be lower at weekends. Most residents dont just shuffle off elsewhere for the weekend.

I work in hospital as a nurse with elderly and it shocks me as at worst we’re 1:14 and at best 1:9-10 with acutely unwell elderly patients that are fully dependent for all their needs and back when I worked in a nursing home the staffing was so much better. The whole system within elderly care really needs to change

Thankyou @FamingolosForDays .
Im not sure what the ratio is on weekdays- never enough as the residents are very unwell. I can't believe there are no guidelines. Social Services pay a lot of the fees and the CQC call them "good". The carers are rushed off their feet.

My DM is in a nursing home, the ratio is 1:2 and some residents have 1:1.

I worked in one a decade ago that was 1:18 at night. A crazy ratio and the reason I left.

We have 5 carers plus 1 nurse for 29 service users during the day but 2 carers, 1 nurse during the night.

Wow! Residential used to be about 1 to 7, nowadays with needs higher it’s usually about 1 to 5. Maybe 1 to 6 in afternoons (mornings are busier). Less at night.

dementia daytime 1 to 4 as standard, higher ratios of needs are higher.

nursing daytime 1 to 4, or 1 to 3 (including the nurse).

There are no set ratios by CQC.

weekends and weekdays should be the same re carers, but usually fewer office/ management around.

Is that a small and expensive care home?

It has 22 residents and starts at £1400 per week and goes up to £2800. There’s a mix of self funders and funded residents.

The one I used to work in had 1 carer per 8 residents, but this was a nursing home with high needs/complex care residents. It was back breaking. It was well staffed with nurses however, 2 on duty per shift in the day and 1 per night.

I work in a care home 2 nurses and 5 carers daytime and 1 nurse 3 carers nighttime.
28 residents. Residents very well cared for.

Thankyou for these. The care home my DER is in have just told me the weekly rate will be £1500 from April.
I looked at their accounts on Companies House. They take £2M in revenue, spend £1M on cost of care and pay over £600k in "admin fees" to a company that doesn't seem to do anything but take money from this group of care homes.

2 overnight, 1:11

Wow that is well staffed! Even at night?