To have thought working in a care home meant being caring

[dewisant2020]

I am a registered nurse in a dementia care home (not long started) doing three night shifts a week 7.30pm until 7.30am.
On shift is myself and 2 HCA'S I am usually busy doing the meds round, paperwork and dealing with everything else in between.
There are 47 residents all off whom have quite advance dementia.
It appears there are things happening on shift that I am certainly not happy about and do not agree with.
We are expected to wake up, wash and dress 18 residents in the morning most of whom don't want to get out of bed, to get this done the carers start at 4.30am.
I told the girls not to do this as it isn't fair on the residents and since then my life's been made a misery.
The day staff refuse to talk to me, instead of helping and putting the people who want to go to bed before we start work into bed they leave them all in the lounge meaning the girls don't get the last ones into bed until gone 1am.
The night shift now want to go back to the old way as they feel punished so I spoken to the manager who basically said we're all about team work here and if you help the day shift out they will help you out.
I feel so sorry for those poor elderly people

I've worked in care homes and was only saying to dh the other day, you really really don't want to end up in one. Most I worked in, evening meal was served around 4pm, and the bulk of residents were put to bed by 6pm. Absolutely ridiculous and no way to treat human beings.

The problem with getting residents up so early also means they spend most of the day asleep in a chair, which I expect could be seen as a good thing by some the carers.
More staff being paid could mean less profit for certain types of homes, or looked at another way fees for resident's go up.

OP this is a safeguarding issue, it's institutional neglect. You have a personal a s professional responsibility to report this immediately. I work in this field, PM me if you want.

I bet people have sold their houses to pay for this too.

How distressing for all, including op.

Are you and 2 HCAs responsible for 47 patients? That's massively understaffed.

That is absolutely awful and makes me feel very sad for the poor residents. Unless you are getting up for work, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be getting up at 4.30am.

Please speak to CQC and report this.

18 people to get up washed and dressed. So say half an hour each - that's 9 hours of work. 4.30am is too early but unless there are dozens of staff (2 members of staff working together per patient) it's going to take all day.
People are unrealistic about the time it takes for this.
If breakfast is say 7.30, how do you get 18 residents up in time to hand over to day staff. ....without hugely increasing fees to cover all this staff.
Just do the maths and explain how this is to be achieved.

It’s abuse.
Get copies of Rota. Any evidence that supports what is going on.
Keep a diary.
It’s seriously understaffed. People should be able to choose when they get up - even people with dementia. People don’t have to have breakfast at a set time. Alternatives should be offered.
The correct staffing ratio should be decided using a staffing and dependency tool. The usual recommended level is about 1 registered nurse to a maximum of eight patients/service users.
Please do report via the provider, the local authority and CQC. Failure to do so means you are risking your own registration.

Interestingly, the research proves better care actually costs less.

I work bank for a few care homes (usually dementia focused homes) and it's really common to find residents being woken up, washed and dressed at 4am sadly.

I hate it and for that reason won't work nights but that's doesn't help the very small numbers of staff and the residents.

Staff are cut from 4/5 plus a team leader on each floor during the day to 2 HCA and 1 team leader to do all floors at night so there just isn't enough bodies to get 60+ residents washed, dressed and into breakfast room by 8.30am.
The day staff do expect a large portion of the resident to be ready when they start at 7.30am because they're responsible for setting up the breakfast room and getting all residents in for breakfast and served and then feb by a certain time for activities.
A lot of residents need hoisting and a lot are a 2 person job.

This is made harder by the fact that a portion of resident will wander at night, they will need attention. Buzzers will go off, people will shout, make noise etc.

Also we have to do periodic checks that pads are dry and clean, beds are dry and clean so we're often waking people up in the night and some won't want to go back to sleep, if someone is soiled we'll have to wash and redress them whatever the time is.

It's a clear cut case of far too little staff in big homes with the most demanding, vulnerable residents and everyone is doing their best, the strict time limits also don't help.
The social care system needs a huge overhaul. I've noticed a lot of people who should be in nursing homes are actually in residential care homes and not many people know the difference.

Those staffing numbers are terrible.
I too work in a Dementia nursing home. Ours only have 24 residents at the moment (can take up to 30), and at night we have 3 HCA and one RMN. They give washes to 3 or so people in the morning, only if they happen to be awake, usually ones who are already bedbound, and get turned and given drinks early anyway.
Day staff do everyone else and even put a few who get overtired to bed before the night staff start at 8pm (8pm to 8am shift at night)
Days at the moment we have two RNS and 6 HCA and one activities person daily.
You need to report your home. I would be very angry if my parent was getting washed at about 4am daily so you could wash 18 residents before 7.30am. Awful place!

That sounds dreadfully understaffed I was an agency HCA before I did my student nursing and honestly it was awful so task orientated.
Purely because of staffing issues many of the carers did care just we had no time.
I now have a job on a specialist inpatient unit for older men with dementia/neurological conditions who have been sectioned each person is on a 1:1 there is more challenging behaviour but miles more staffing and funding I wouldn't work in a generic care home again.

I left a nursing home for similar reasons. 80 residents, with 1 nurse for all and 8 HCAs. We worked in pairs as most were bed-bound or end of life care so had 20 residents each morning and that was on a good day with full staff in. Each resident had to be bathed/showered or a full bed bath alternate days - so imagine giving 10 of those on top of feeding/toileting/fluids/tidying rooms for everyone else. It was horrific. I gave up after 12 months as my back was playing up due to all the hoisting we had to do - on bloody carpets (think high end hotel like nursing home). It was designed for the relatives and not the residents or staff..........