Is going the extra mile too far? Or is this the way we
should be looking at care?

We all want to offer the best level of care to the people
using our services but can going that little bit further be too much? Thinking
out side of the box and personalising care and support is often the motivation
given to employees but could this cause disciplinary issues or even jeopardise
your position?

There has been a case of a care worker being dismissed
from her company for moving the elderly and distressed lady in her care without
a hoist. The employers stated that the case was not an emergency and safety
rules were broken by not waiting for trained staff to arrive.

While attending an alarm set by a resident in sheltered
housing, a carer carefully lifted the distressed lady from her chair to a
commode to clean her as she was soaked in urine. This call had been reported
earlier in the day and no-one had yet attended. As the lady’s situation had
worsened she had become increasingly stressed leading to an increased blood
pressure. Having not been able to get contact with the care provider and the
family unable to attend the call centre support line had sent out the carer.

Upon entry you could see that the lady requesting help
was soaked in urine and was asking to be helped, after assessing the care plan
you could see no-one had seen with this lady all day. With permission of the
lady the carer helped move her from her chair to a commode to be able to clean
and change her. To view the full article and petition please click here.

There may be many instances of care where you need to
assess the situation and think on your feet, do you feel that working outside
of the protocol or company practices are sometimes needed or are they there for
a reason? Obviously there are valid points to each side but is the care we
provide our main aim? Having correct and effective training will always help
but not every situation is straightforward and there may be times when it is necessary
to work differently. What are your views on this?

What do you look for when giving care, and how do you
think situations like this can be treated fairly or be rectified? Are there any
instances where you or your colleagues have gone the extra mile and given
extremely good levels of care? All of these things can help you improve and
focus your services to make sure you are providing the best level of care you
can. Person centred care is the focus, let’s all make changes to improve this.

There are specific courses that you are expected to have updated every few years and it is important to ensure that these are done effectively. Keep your training material fresh and interactive. This can help keep people interested and mean they are more likely to retain the important information.

Think out of the box. Taking people out of their comfort zone or thinking in a new way can help keep the information relevant or even make people think about it differently.

There are many other courses that fall out of what was termed mandatory that are equally important. These will differ depending on your environment and clients needs. It is important that you and your staff are equipped to deal with a number of different subjects, not only does it help improve the care they give but also with their sense of importance and quality of their working day.

Making sure you know who the audience is. Residential and Domiciliary care do not work in the same way for things such as Administration of Medication. Make yours relevant to those you are training.

Learning is quite tiring so don’t overload people with info. You may find they come away from the course with so much to process that they forget certain things. Make it punchy and informative while keeping it fun.

The purpose of training is to keep everyone up to date with the subject as well as teaching any changes. This helps everyone to improve or keep high standards. Make sure that it covers the expectations from skills for care, these guidelines help focus training.

Use real life examples. This can make people see what relevance this has in their daily routine. Everyone has a story of how it affects them, whether it is funny, sad or something that has been improved upon. Let’s use it.

If you want to ask more about how you can improve or change your training, or even where to start please ask. We have a collective wealth of experience in direct care and training practices, we also keep up to date with governments focus, trends and funding.

Let’s recap some of these changes month by month.

December-

• Talks about integration of health and social care. Although this is not new in some counties- Devon and Essex among other counties have been changing the way they assist with older people either before they get admitted to hospital and after care and support after discharge.

November-

• Reports about NHS treatment revealed staff lacking care. Many patients reported they were left without food and water or pain relief. As well as reports showing training and understanding was lacking.
• 900% increase in over 60’s apprenticeships. Initially brought out to improve rates of unemployment in those under 25. Signings were up from 400 in 2009 to 3910 in 2011.

October-

• Budgets for over 65’s have fallen by £1.3bn which is almost a fifth
• Government supports early intervention for children and young people
• Start of Health lottery- aims to assist disadvantaged groups
• Inflation to help with state pensions costs, although the changes will not be taken into effect until April 2012. The predicated changes are stated as an increase of £5.31 on weekly pensions.

September-

• Bill to stop default retirement age is almost scrapped. This is aimed to help ageism in the work place.
• Findings show that parents in the UK have spent £34bn to adult dependants. This is a result from rising university and living costs to a harder job market

August-

• Southern Cross chief stands down without severance pay. Equivalent of 12 months’ salary was agreed not to be taken even though it was an entitlement.
• Stats state that children born now are a third more likely to reach the age of 100

July-

• Company promoting telecare installs equipment for free. This was trialled in some councils to show the savings that would be made in social care.
• Dilnot report into funding of care announced
• As energy prices increase one in 5 households spend over 10% on fuel
• Elderly now waiting less time for urgent hip replacements
• Calls made to offer Alzheimer’s test in over 60’s

June-

• Coalition suggests that middle classes face £35,000 bill to help pay for their care.
• Southern Cross announces it’s near collapse

May-

• AgeUK organised protest against plans to raise state pension age
• Disabled people protest about spending cuts

April-

• Government to look into decision to stop using cheques in 2018
• Prudential show that up to 50% in the number of people working longer to support pensions
• Level 4 NVQ registrations now become QCF level 5 in Leadership and Management

March-

• Review into grandparents’ roles after divorce and their legal rights
• Winter fuel top up will not be renewed, Labour have announced that the assistance with winter fuel will not be carried on later this year. Later a rebate by the 6 larger power companies has been introduced.
• Taxes required to increase as people may have been receiving more care than they have contributed towards.

February-

• Camden council set to cut 1000 jobs to make savings to fit into £35m budget savings

January-

• QCF diplomas take the place of NVQ’s. Changes designed to help with manageable sized units and assistance with future learning and development
• Alzheimer’s society state that inadequate care for dementia sufferers force people into care earlier than necessary

This scheme has been criticised for not being widely publicised to enable older people to claim a rebate on their energy bills. There are a number of energy suppliers who are involved with the scheme and each have different criteria to decide who can receive the rebate and have each taken a different approach to advising their customers.

The scheme was brought about after a large number of winter deaths last year; it enables the majority of people on pension credits to receive £120.00 back into their own bank accounts. Most people need not do anything to receive their rebate, where as others may need to enquire with their supplier to see if they fall under “broader group”. The government predict that £1.1bn over the next four years will be put into this scheme to aim to help people receiving the credits with the rising costs of energy bills.

The larger energy suppliers have each taken a different approach to informing people if they are eligible to claim back the warm home discount. Some have written to their customers while others have got messages on their websites. This approach has left a majority of the people affected unaware that they are entitled to any help with their bills. This does not affect any previous discount schemes.

If you would like to see more please click here to visit directgov .

Winter Solstice

Yesterday marked the shortest day of the year, so from here on in our days will be getting slightly longer.

This change comes about when the tilt of the earth’s axis is farthest away from the sun. The earth doesn’t orbit the sun in a circular motion, but instead on an axis. The rotation normally takes 365.25 days, which is why we have leap years. As next year marks the leap year the solstice will fall on the 21.12.12. We will start to see the effects of this change soon.

Health and Social care agencies in South-end have been reacting to emergency calls differently to help reduce the amount of people admitted into hospital. It has been agreed by experts that the amount of older people admitted into hospital is too large and is the biggest long term challenge faced by the NHS.

Historically people were admitted into hospital when a call was placed, not only does this mean large numbers of over 65’s who call in are admitted into hospital but in some cases a longer recovery period. Some counties have increasing numbers of these calls. Essex have been adopting an approach which sees an Emergency care practitioner visit the person in question who identifies the issues and also calls into action the relevant teams to assist.

In most cases this also cuts the time taken to help resolve and rectify any health issues. One call had the problem diagnosed and a team arrive within 20 minutes.  To help initiate this, voluntary sectors along with service users were asked to redesign services to help the older population; it was also tailored to help reduce the costs on hospital and residential care. Day assessments, specialist teams along with other practices help support the patient and over all prevent readmission.

GP’s have said this will really make a difference, not only with admissions but also with the forms and contact numbers required to assist people in the past. Along with being asked if they are satisfied with the care provided people are also explained why they were not admitted into hospital so that they have a full understanding. This approach has not only saved 756 out of 966 calls in Essex this year being admitted but also aimed to save £3.8m in costs.

There are also aims of setting up telehealth devices, which monitor people’s health on a daily basis through electronic sensors. These results are transmitted to healthcare professionals and aim to reduce A&E visits by 15%, emergency hospital visits by 20% and mortality rates b 45% for those with long term conditions.

Changes such as these will be necessary for NHS reform and also help with improved communication throughout the different sectors including GP referrals and admissions into residential and nursing homes.

Under water knitting may not be a suitable activity for anyone, even the most avid knitter, but there are alternatives.

Enjoyment can come from most activities or hobbies but there is a group of women who are taking a specialised sport and tailoring it to their enjoyment. Welcome to the world of synchronised swimming.  Members ranging in age from 56 to 94 regularly meet to train and compete. This has even lead to them being involved in adverts.  

Mobility and ability vary between all members, as well as challenging them physically it also tests their mental skills due to having to remember the routines. Although this activity is limited to women, men can also get involved with arrangements, lighting and filming. One member stated it’s no fun designing costumes for the men “you can’t put gloves and dressage hats on men”.

One member who has been part of the group for 19 years has stated her MS has not affected her performing as she doesn’t fall in the pool. The water gives theses women more freedom to move opposed to the land, it also provides social interaction through their community and a higher sense of purpose. The graceful moves keep them ageless.

Brilliant news on Funding claims

Skills for care have announced that they have extended the period of time to claim funding towards NVQ units. This comes after requests from care home owners, training companies and skills for care representatives.

Funding for completed units can now be claimed for up until 16^th March 2012. This was backed as people signing up in December last year then had a suitable amount of time to complete their selected units.

They have also announced that a wider range of QCF units will also be funded across levels 2, 3 and 5. This is great news for all interested in these diplomas and those already studying. If you would like more information on this or any other news please feel free to contact us.

We aim to keep our prices at very competitive rates.

Currently these are:

QCF Diploma Level 2 – £550

QCF Diploma Level 3 – £895

QCF Diploma Level 5 – £995

QCF Diploma Level 7 – £1,450

How fantastic is that!

CIEH Level 2 Food Hygiene

CIEH Level 2 Manual Handling

CIEH Level 2 Health & Safety

EFAW – Emergency First Aid at Work

NCFE QCF Level 1 Mental Health Awareness

NCFE Level 2 in Dementia Awareness

NOCN QCF Level 3 in Dementia Awareness

NCFE Level 2 in Nutrition & Health

NCFE Level 2 in Infection Control

NCFE Level 3 End of Life Care

NCFE Level 2 Safe Handling of Medicines

NCFE Level 2 Provision of Activities in the Care Setting

NOCN Level 3 Activities Provision in Social Care

 You can find request information on both by contacting us.