Abuse in care

[Guinness]

So yet again headlines about care workers in Lancashire abusing their charges.

The hypocrisy of LCC here is unbelievable. They claim that this is all down to lack of supervision by senior staff.

What this Labour run county council does not tell you is that they have consistently reduced the amount of funding they pay for care. They do not even pay enough to fund the legal minimum wage.

National Minimum Wage compliance: ‘sleepover’ shifts and travel time - Bristol Lawyers - QualitySolicitors Burroughs Day Bulletin

What they also don't tell you, is that they send in social worker hit squads called 'remodelling teams', that constantly reduce funding year on year. This causes poor pay and conditions and low morale for good staff. Staff cannot provide proper care because a time and motion computer program says that a particular person with alzheimers can only go out between 2 and 3 on a friday and can only be assisted to the toilet at 3, 6 and 9 o'clock and has to perform within 15 minutes of the carer entering and leaving the building. Good staff leave because they cannot bear to watch the deterioration in the quality of care that they can deliver.

'Remodelling teams', remove the need for supervisory staff, according to the computer program they are excess and not needed....yet this is what LCC use as an argument to absolve themselves of blame in this case?????.

And guess what..there is absolutely no comeback for these people, because as you see from these headlines....it's a lack of supervision and nothing to do with the county council, their untouchable commissioners and their faceless remodellers...

No cuts to frontline services....true...there are joint purchasing commissioners who do little more than attend meetings, the majority of which are pointless, with no outcome, that are usually arranged by them to justify their existence....extra money has been allocated to employ more social workers, to be trained as 'remodellers'...the actual cuts have been given to people who really need this care or the people who provide this care.

The people who need this care have fought in wars, paid taxes all their lives, raised families. They are mothers, father, sisters, brothers.

THEY HAVE EARNED the right to be cared for by our taxes.

I've met a lot of people working in the care industry, and a lot of them are young. They have big hearts, they really do care.

Now I'm no rocket scientist, but if you create a situation where people who actually take pride in their job and actually care for their charges GET THAT DISILLUSIONED because they need to do so much training, have to complete so much paperwork, deal with relatives, social workers, CQC, Health and safety, are targeted by every single adverse headline of abuse....all for minimum wage....as opposed to working on a till at Asda for a 50% increase in pay and zero responsibility...is it any wonder you end up with a-holes like those who have been jailed today.

I eagerly await Graham Jones justifying his picture shaking hands with the Labour County Council leader, or an in depth investigation by the Lancashire Telegraph..but I won't hold my breath, because it's so easy to headline 3 pricks and ignore the 1 million others who work very hard every single day to ensure your gran is looked after with dignity!

[cmonstanley]

hill croft care home is privately owned. another example of profit first in the care industry. the link is for carer visiting which was privatized by most councils to save money.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I don't get it. If you have a genuine desire to care, to make a difference to the lives of others, be that in a care home setting or in hospital, you wouldn't ever do this to vulnerable people.
The people who did this to elderly vulnerable residents didn't see their charges as 'their Gran' they saw them just as a job....nothing more.
These carers were in the wrong job - they should have been stacking shelves somewhere.

If I ever got that disillusioned I would not take my disillusionment out on the residents, I would leave and find a different job.
Stress and being disillusioned is not an excuse for behaviour like this. These peopel took the job knowing what it consisted of. That there would be unsocial hours, that they would have to work with people with challenging behaviour(dementia)...they chose to do the job.
If you choose a job like this and find it too demanding then you leave and find something else....there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for mistreating vulnerable people.

[Guinness]

You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not excusing the behaviour of these animals.

Its the good carers, the vocational carers, that have become disillusioned and are leaving in droves, they cannot do their jobs properly given the restrictions placed on them by these ivory towered remodellers and commissioners paid by Lancashire County Council. Many of the people that are left did NOT take the job as a vocation, they took it because it is an alternative to a life on benefits. Most of them are hard working and honest, but you still get muppets like the 3 at Hillcroft that slip through the net, as you do in any industry.

People are getting bare minimum care, the actual care staff have their industry and good name besmirched by the actions of 3 retards, LCC jumps happily on the bandwagon of lack of supervision whilst refusing to actually fund this supervision.

Now that this trial is over...LCC will commission a Serious Case Review..this will consist of a lot of hand wringing meetings by commissioners and remodellers over the next 12 months which will then conclude that there must be more supervision of staff. No money will be allocated for this and so the circle will continue.

People are dying because of these pen pushers, some will die today, but they can divert public opinion away from this fact by highlighting the actions of 3 criminals, who incidentally were not caught by LCC red tape but by decent hard working whistleblowers.

£6 million has just been allocated to increase the number of meeting attending penpushers...£33 million has been removed from hands on care provision in the last 2 years.....people can now have meetings about your Gran, but nobody is there to cook her dinner or clean her up after an accident.

[Margaret Pilkington]

No I don't misunderstand what you are saying at all. I get your point and I agree with it.

You cannot put compassion into someone if it isn't there already...I don't believe that 'caring' can be taught. You either care or you don't.
These people who committed the vile acts against the residents in their care did not need supervising...they did not need to be told that what they were doing was wrong - they knew it was wrong.
Had any of them been asked if they would like an elderly relative of their own to be treated in such a fashion, do you think they would have said 'Yes'?
I believe that society is much to blame for portraying the elderly as a drain on resources.

Those who are in need of care right now are the ones that made this country....their work and their sacrifices are now considered negligible - even though most of these who are in care pay large sums of money for the care they receive.(often having had to sell their homes to pay for such care)
They could go and live in a hotel for less money and get better looked after.

After an incident like this there is always some kind of investigation...and the words 'Lessons will be learned' are trotted out again and again....but lessons are not learned and incidents are repeated.

The elderly are seen as disposable, of very little value.
So unless society changes its view of this group of people these things will continue.

And that is why I look after my own mother and will continue to do so for as long as I am able. I do not trust anyone to look after her in the way that I can.

[Guinness]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

And that is why I look after my own mother and will continue to do so for as long as I am able. I do not trust anyone to look after her in the way that I can.

Unfortunately there are people who for one reason or another have nobody to care for them.

I was reading an article last week about government mandarins investigating the possibility of farming out the elderly with dementia to care homes in Thailand. The triple reasoning behind this was that the culture over there is geared towards respect and care for their elders, they wouldn't know where they were anyway (which shows just how little these mandarins understand dementia) and of course wages are low so there would be a significant reduction in cost.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Government/council bodies are not in the game to make life easier, simpler or more equitable for those they are supposed to serve, their motto is CYA(cover your ass).
You only have to look at cases like the Victoria Climbie case...lessons would be learned....then there was the baby P case....lessons would be learned, then there was the case of the little polish boy who was starving........these were all vulnerable people...none of them were served by the authorities that were supposed to protect them.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Guinness

Unfortunately there are people who for one reason or another have nobody to care for them.

I was reading an article last week about government mandarins investigating the possibility of farming out the elderly with dementia to care homes in Thailand. The triple reasoning behind this was that the culture over there is geared towards respect and care for their elders, they wouldn't know where they were anyway (which shows just how little these mandarins understand dementia) and of course wages are low so there would be a significant reduction in cost.

Yes, Guinness, I appreciate that. How sad their lives must be - to have no-one on earth to act as their gatekeepers.
I also keep an eye out for my elderly neighbour. I think of him as I would do of my own dad.

The farming out of the elderly to cultures where the old are venerated sounds sensible, but it isn't anything more than a cost reduction exercise.
These cultures do not resonate with those elderly who would be sent away from everything they know and have loved for all of their lives......The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel springs to mind.

[Guinness]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

You cannot put compassion into someone if it isn't there already...I don't believe that 'caring' can be taught. You either care or you don't.

I've been thinking about this comment and I think its flawed.

As kids we poke fun of anyone who is different, kids are nasty. We reach teenage and become self obsessed. We marry, have kids and become focused on providing, at this point unless you work in the care industry or have a close family member who needs care...'you don't care'... because you have not yet experienced why caring and compassion is important.....it's only later, when we have time to reflect, that we think about how our actions might impact on others.

Age and experience teaches the majority of us compassion, but it doesn't teach us how to put that into practice. We may think we are doing right by that grumpy old cow in bedroom 3 but then a teacher/trainer shows us this...

What Do You See Nurse?

and we are taught by it.

[cmonstanley]

i remember before the national minimum wage people were working in care homes for £2.50 an hour r less that was in 1997.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Guinness

I've been thinking about this comment and I think its flawed.

As kids we poke fun of anyone who is different, kids are nasty. We reach teenage and become self obsessed. We marry, have kids and become focused on providing, at this point unless you work in the care industry or have a close family member who needs care...'you don't care'... because you have not yet experienced why caring and compassion is important.....it's only later, when we have time to reflect, that we think about how our actions might impact on others.

Age and experience teaches the majority of us compassion, but it doesn't teach us how to put that into practice. We may think we are doing right by that grumpy old cow in bedroom 3 but then a teacher/trainer shows us this...

What Do You See Nurse?

and we are taught by it.

I know that poem very well. I had a framed copy on my office wall when I was senior sister of my ward......there is a companion to it from the carers point of view.
I understand much of what you say, but do not agree with it.
I am from a family of seven children and there are four of us who went into the caring profession.
Caring is largely a matter of being able to interpret the needs of another....and then being able to provide for those needs.....it is going the extra mile.

I had the privilege of teaching nurses during my career and I used to ask them to see the patient in the bed as a member of their own family...mother, father, sister......to think what they(the patient) would like doing for them in this context. I told them that they would not always be right, but that they wouldn't be far wrong......and they certainly would commit no harm.

Caring for people is a hard task, but it is full of satisfaction.....and that is why many people do it for the low pay......job satisfaction.
Pay was poor when I took up the profession, but I enjoyed my work.
How many people can say that?

[Margaret Pilkington]

Seniors Network - Mattie's poem -Nurse's Reply

I knew that if I looked hard enough I would find it.

[flashy]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

i remember before the national minimum wage people were working in care homes for £2.50 an hour r less that was in 1997.

in 1992 i worked 40 hours a week for £29.50, i was on a yts at a care home.

Guinness, just because i was on such a small wage it didnt make me want to abuse those in my care, i was 16 at the time, fresh out of school, i wanted to learn, from the care jobs i have had over the years i have now got my ideal job working for the nhs...i am not on an amazing amount of money, we dont get enough money from above to spend on the things we need for day to day care of the patients but that DOES NOT mean me or any of my colleagues would ever dream of miss treating our patients.

Those animals who abused those old people in that home are sick in the head, theres no other excuse, you cannot blame pay or those above them, thats just bull

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by flashy

in 1992 i worked 40 hours a week for £29.50, i was on a yts at a care home.

Guinness, just because i was on such a small wage it didnt make me want to abuse those in my care, i was 16 at the time, fresh out of school, i wanted to learn, from the care jobs i have had over the years i have now got my ideal job working for the nhs...i am not on an amazing amount of money, we dont get enough money from above to spend on the things we need for day to day care of the patients but that DOES NOT mean me or any of my colleagues would ever dream of miss treating our patients.

Those animals who abused those old people in that home are sick in the head, theres no other excuse, you cannot blame pay or those above them, thats just bull

Spot on Shaz...absolutely spot on!

[cmonstanley]

you can now, because people are forced to work in care homes for their dole money even if they are suited or not. they refuse no dole money. flashy times have changed now cheap labour is the name of the game now. anybody can be shoved into a care home or anywhere else.