to have cried my eyes out over the Panorama programme last night

[cuteboots]

I think its cos my mum and step dad are getting on a bit on years and the thought of them being treated like that would be totally heartbreaking! I wailed my eyes out for a good half an hour

codandchops and wingedharpie.
My mum is a pensioner with no savings,.
My sister looked over the home with her social worker, she's now waiting for a place.
It seems a good home, but I'm filled with the guilt that I can't take her in myself.
I just hate those awful stories about how the most vulnerable are treated, believe me it won't happen to Mum.
I'll be the biggest pain in the arse that they'll ever see.

My father in law died last year. he was in a "care" home. he was found sitting fully dressed in a chair with a broken neck

QOD, what the fuck?

The fees need to be increased, along with the staffing ratios and pay rates. More training as well.

If you think, you pay more per week to stay in a hotel than you do to stay in a care home. The fees sound high, but they're honestly not high enough. The staffing ratios are desperate. We start putting people into bed mid afternoon just so we can get through the work. Some of the people are frail and tired and do need to go into bed that early, but not all. Staff are your greatest asset and if you have decent ones, and enough of them, you can do a really good job.

Everywhere I have ever worked, the nightstaff have to start at 6am getting people up. You're not supposed to start that early, but they do, otherwise people would still be in bed at midday. I'm not excusing care like this, but I honestly don't think the public realise just how poor the ratios are. So many people need feeding that there's only about 10 minutes per person to spare. I've known a new resident to be brought in by ambulance from hospital discharge - generally in the middle of teatime. They need a lot of care and settling in and people have been left without being fed because it's so hectic. They've been given supplemented milkshake in place of a meal because fluids are quicker to give than food.

When our resident levels drop, the standard of care goes up. It can't be ignored, this is the case

When my nan was in a care home I travelled a lot on business and stayed in expensive hotels. I remember working out that it was still cheaper to pay for a hotel, three meals a day plus the airfare (in Europe) than the weekly cost of my nan's home. Hers was half the price of the more upmarket ones my parents looked at. I had a friend who was an activities organiser in the upmarket home and she was appalled about the level of care and lack of trained staff.

Hiddenhome, I stopped doing nursing home shifts as I was literally putting my registration on the line every time I took the keys in my hand.

I wasn't sleeping at night, crying, I was so upset & stressed out.

I can understand that Fanny

When my late dh was in the hospice there was one nurse and two carers to five patients. These are the types of staffing ratios we need to be looking for. The care was excellent and not rushed at all. Care homes can only dream of these levels.

I've turned up for a shift before, a nightshift in a building on 3 floors, was meant to be me and 3 care staff. However 2 had phoned in sick so me & one other, the nurse on duty before me didn't inform me and just handed me the keys and left.

This was a home with 60+ residents.

that's bad indeed

Fanny your experience is the sort of thing that my friend told me about the home she worked in. Absolutely appalling. And yet the culture is such that these homes are run to make a profit. I don't understand why there can't be a move to run them more on a charitable, not for profit basis.

I spent the whole night terrified that something would happen, don't think I sat down, had a drink or a wee the whole night. I was quite newly qualified then as well.
After that I never accepted the handover or keys till all my staff were present and correct, I have also refused to take charge of a shift on a couple of occasions, phoned my agency to inform them and went home.

I turned up for a dayshift somewhere through the agency and it turned out they didn't have an evening nurse to take over from me. I was miles from home and had to collect ds1 from his nursery. I couldn't leave the home until I had another nurse to take over, so I was stuck there. I had no friends or family to collect ds1 either I was terrified and phoned the RCN who confirmed that if I left the home I'd face losing my registration. I had a huge argument with the regional manager and the stupid woman in the office. The manager of the home was out of the country on holiday and the deputy was also away. Nobody gave a stuff about ds1, it was horrible. I was so worried that I made a drug error as well.

Eventually, my agency managed to get a nurse to come and take over. I rushed through to the nursery and just hugged ds1 and cried.

The other thing my friend found was a fair number of the carers struggled to speak good enough English to communicate with the residents.

Oh hiddenhome, bless you, I know how that feels. I've been in a similar boat.

Yup hiddenhome that sounds pretty familiar to me as well, fortunately had family around, ive been on a backshift then no nightshift nurse turned up, that was fun.

What pisses me off is its always oh the NHS, the nurses are so overworked blah blah blah, aye I've worked nhs, in some bloody busy wards but it doesn't even come close to what I have had to deal with in private care.

I have just come back to this.

Hiddenhome and FannyFifer you sound like you have been trying to 'care' in desperate and impossible circumstances.
Where is all the money people pay out per week going? Into the pockets of Care home managers? I know most [?] homes have been privatised now. Have things got worse since then? [Saying that - over 20 years ago I worked in an awful Local Authority home. Doing a quick wee was a break].
Someone up thread mentioned 'charitable status/ not for profit' Homes. Would that improve things?
Something has to change. Good quality and quantity of staff essential. Money needs to be invested in the 'right' places.

I have always thought to myself if I ever win the lottery I would open a few not for profit nursing homes, hand pick my staff,have loads of them, including a great chef and pay them very well. Look after the clients in a manner in which everyone deserves.
I absolutely adore working with older people, it should be seen as a privilege, to me it is, unfortunately there is simply nowhere I can work where I can give the care that I should be giving.

I don't know what the answer is, maybe local charities like age concern run the homes.

People are actually looked down on for being a care assistant and working in care of the elderly, society's whole perception has to change but i don't know how.

I would say about 80% of all the care workers in three agencies over four years have treated DP like this. Not the hitting (although that's happened), but the drag lifting, the force feeding, the total lack of communication, these are all standard practices of "good" homecare staff. The last agency we had was rated Excellent by the CQC.

(We've just moved to yet another agency and they really ARE caring, and it's a total revelation.)

I would say that sadly most care workers I've met are uncommunicative, uncaring, incompetent, or low-level sadistic. It's rare to get them to even say hello and look at DP when they come in the house. Communication and eye contact is something that (before our new amazing agency) we had to fight for with almost every new person. Our grand criteria for care workers has always been:

1. turn up within half an hour of their shift
2. say hello and look at us
3. wash their hands

Between 2008 and 2012, we never got two days together of anyone managing this. Basically I used them as a quite effective alarm clock. They came round at around 6.30-7 every morning and got me out of bed; they emptied a drainage bag while I had a cup of coffee. Then I did all the care work on my own after they had filled in their paperwork and buggered off as they were so bloody useless and I actually, you know, love my DP, and am still just about physically able to Do It All 24/7 (but at a fierce cost).

Moving and handling practices, particularly, are not required to be taught in any practical way, btw. The "training" is just sitting watching a DVD. Almost none of them have any idea what they doing, or of the harm they are causing, especially with the armpit drag lifting and grab-rolling, which is common practice. But if you complain, they just say, they've been on the course! Which is like magic, you know; simply playing the magic DVD near people will cause them to understand the physical tasks of M&H.

Lots of people will disagree with me now, and say that I've just been MYSTERIOUSLY unlucky. I've not, though. And I agree that there are good care workers. In fact I have a IB carer who is amazing. omg I love her, she is AMAZING

I used to work for a charitable organisation and the ratios were no better tbh. We still used to struggle along and the standard of care wasn't that different from the mainstream homes.

I think more regulation is needed and ratios need to be addressed as a national issue rather than individual managers or companys making the decisions. I also worked for four years in one home and didn't receive any update training whatsoever. The manager was lazy and incompetent and only interested in his salary.

Am watching Panorama now, it's shocking.

oh acumenoop I am sooooooooo sad that you have had experiences like this and it pains me to agree that many (agency) staff are just like that. I have worked for an agency and have beeen so furious at the standard of "traning" ( as you say , watching a dvd, as well as have trainer who actually got basic things wrong !) I have made formal complaints as well as speaking up during the sessions.

I agree 100% re the manual handling , it CANNOT be trained without practical sessions and to do it properly it needs to be 2 full days minimum and more specific person centred if required.

There are a percentage of staff that do do the job as they cant keep other jobs but there are some like me who are semi retired from a full time career and some that are doing it to fit round child care.... or some to just use it to get the feel of a few places before applying for jobs, they dont want to apply for a job in a place that looks good just to find out after its horrible.

I too have been in the situation of having to stay on several times.... in one place ( not via agency it was my "proper job") I was there for 48 hours before I could leave to go home to my DC's !

I really, really do not know what the answer is .... via standards of care /regulations etc the requirements are already out there, inspections are already out there but much of what they concentrate on is the paperwork ( trusting that what it says there actually happens.) .

Some of the issues are so difficult to solve and its not just more money / regulation ..... it is far deeper than that.

What I don't understand is how they get people like that working for them.
Surely it's in built in the human condition to care about the vulnerable and the elderly, to want to look after them, and look out for them.
If we took a poll on MN the vast majority would care, so WTF are they finding those people?

It's so utterly horrific to see someone treated like an object. Complete depersonalisation and dehumanisation.
Nobody even greeted her!

My grandmother died a couple of weeks back after 2 years in a nursing home.
When I first visited her I was shocked by the decor, the old-fashioned-ness of the place, the smells (nothing can eradicate the faint smell of piss and less faint smell of tobacco coming from almost every corner), etc. It was the kind of place that made me want to run for the exits the minute I walked through the entrance.

But you know what? My demanding, belligerent, cantankerous old Nan was treated with kindness and compassion throughout her time there. The carers may not have spoken the Queens English, might not have been the kind of folk you'd ever spend time with in normal circs, and so on, but by God I learnt to respect them. Never complaining, no matter how much my gran ranted at them (sometimes being very racist ). They were always there, always looking in, not letting my gran get away with too much, and always making sure she and the room were spotlessly clean and that she was never left on her own for too long (even if it was just a peek round the door because they were so busy). And when my gran started to go, the manager would finish her shift and then drop by for an hour or so before going home. Not because she liked my gran (she really was that cantankerous), but because it was the compassionate thing to do.

It can be done like that, it doesn't always have to be a nightmare in these places.