Championing Dignity in Care

This week I became a Dignity Champion.  I felt quite privileged to be following in the footsteps of Michael Parkinson who has been the Government's Dignity Ambassador since 2008 and frontman for the Dignity in Care Campaign.  I am also joining a growing  group of people from all  walks of life - Dignity Champions -  who believe passionately that Dignity is a basic human right and that care services must be compassionate, person-centred as well as efficient.  Dignity Champions  promote dignity within the care sector and take practical steps to improve dignity for clients in service delivery.

Training is Essential to Good Quality Care

We held an  induction training session today.  Our new recruits arrived early and full of anticipation for the day ahead and the role they will be undertaking in the future.  My welcome to them included a summary of our values and ethos and how as an organisation we will be supporting them in their future role and the training they will receive with SureCare.

Helping Clients to Live Independently and Safely

It seems scarcely a week goes by without a horror story being reported in the press about elderly people who have been subjected to revolting forms of abuse.  It seems that no matter where you are - at home or in residential accomodation, if you are elderly,  you are at risk.   And in addition to violence, neglect and doorstep fraudsters which are all too common and well covered in the press, perpetrators find ever more ingenious ways to take advantage of the elderly.

I was reading this week about a couple who befriended their neighbour, a woman in her eighties with health problems living alone without family and few friends.  This "caring" couple started out by befriending their neighbour, helping with her chores, progressing to cancelling her care workers, moving her into their home to "look after her", isolating her from her contacts and eventually persuading  her into signing over her home to them.   Luckily for this lady one of her "real" friends became suspicious, investigated the couple and found that they had a history of preying on elderly women living alone in valuable properties and had managed to acquire three other properties in this way.  The friend reported the case to Social Services, but although they ageed to keep an eye on the lady, there was little they could  do in these circumstances when the lady is grateful to her "friends" and seems to be be acting of her own free will.

We need to be vigilant about our vulnerable elderly neighbours. Care Support Workers can be a great help in looking out for their elderly clients ensuring that they are visited regularly and noting anything unusual  in the day to day activities of the home.  This can give peace of mind to relatives.   They can also be sure that our Care Staff are trustworthy because at SureCare, we take safeguarding of our clients very seriously.  All our Care Support Workers have an enhanced CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check and two written references from previous employers.

We then  train them to spot any signs of abuse and have robust procedures to ensure that any suspected or actual abuse is reported and acted upon promptly. The director of SureCare also belongs to the Warwickshire Safeguarding Network to keep up to date with developments in safeguarding and cascades information on safeguarding down to all staff. We are constantly vigilant to ensure that all our clients  are able to live full and independent lives in safety. 

If you are a relative of an elderly adult who needs care please see our website for more information on our services: www.surecarewarks.co.uk

Looking After Our Staff

We have been recruiting staff this last week as Care Support Workers.  Their role will be to work with older people in their homes supporting them with personal and domestic taks to enable them to live independently for as long as possible.

Listening to how some Care workers are treated by Care Agencies makes me very angry.  Care Workers are not the best paid and have very low status in society in spite of the critical work that they do in ensuring older people with care needs - who are some of the most vulnerable people in our society - are supported at home.  Poor training, poor supervision, poor monitoring, poor management, call cramming and so on are all things I'm hearing  from potential recruits are widespread in the care sector particularly amongst private agencies.

In SureCare, our starting point in providing high quality person-centred care is to look after our staff. Because we beleive that if our staff are well paid, well supported, well trained and supervised they will in turn do a good job of looking after their clients.  Simply, by respecting the personhood of the Care Worker, we respect the personhood of the client. 

Our calls to clients are a minimum of 1/2 hour and we will ensure that our staff remain to for the full half hour because the client deserves to get their full time allocation that they have paid for. There is no call cramming and adequate travelling time factored in for staff to reach their next client.  We give staff a full induction programme plus additional training in  important areas such as medication, moving and handling  and food hygiene.  All our staff will also undergo specialist dementia courses to support our clients with dementia. When they have completed this training they will be able to wear a Specialist Care Worker badge to indicate their completion of this additional training.   We encourage our Care Workers to complete NVQs in social care.   Monthly supervison, yearly appraisal and regular team meetings all contribute to supporting and mentoring our staff  so they can provide the best care for our clients. 

We are always looking for highly motivated and committed care staff.  If you know anyone who would like to join our team please see our website at http://www.surecarewarks.co.uk/  or email us at info@surecarewarks.co.uk for more information.