IPPR: Staff Crisis Looming for Home Care for the Elderly (UK)

IPPR: Staff crisis looming for home care for the elderly

Elderly people are receiving poor quality care at home because of a shortage of well-trained staff to help with tasks such as washing and getting dressed, a report has warned.

By Tim Ross, Social Affairs

01 Jul 2011

Carers are rarely assigned to the same person for long enough to become familiar with their needs, the study, published by the think-tank IPPR, found.

Low wages, high rates of staff turnover and an over-reliance on migrant workers have contributed to a “failing” system, according to the report, which called for more government funding to avert a crisis in care.

Research has found that most elderly people want to remain in their own homes for longer, rather than moving to residential care homes and leaving their familiar surroundings and communities behind.

Ministers also believe that improving home care, including help with every day tasks such as meals, dressing, washing and shopping, can reduce the pressure on nursing homes and release NHS hospital beds.

But the IPPR report found too often older people were being provided with “poor levels of care that do not meet their needs” or accommodate their preferences because of a shortage of well-trained care workers.

“Home-care is currently failing this test,” the report said. “Low wages, poor progression opportunities and a stressful working environment have led to job vacancies, a high turn-over of staff, a low skills base, and a reliance on migrant labour.”

In London, which experiences some of the most severe problems with staff shortages, 75% of home care workers come from overseas, the report said.

Carers are too often poorly trained and under so much pressure from high workloads that they cannot spend enough time with the same person to “listen” to their needs, it said.

“In order for home-based care to be good quality it needs to be provided by a familiar care worker who is able to meet the individual needs of the person using care,” the report said.

“High staff turnover rates and employees on temporary contracts mean that older people rarely benefit from having consistency in their care workers.

“Many of the people we interviewed spoke of the limited amount of time care workers are allocated for each older person.”

Estimates suggest that 100,000 people will be unable to receive the care they need across the UK over the next decade, leading many to be admitted to hospital and creating a crisis of “bed blocking” in the NHS.

Up to 1 million more care workers will be needed in England over the next 15 years to cope with an ageing population, but budget cuts for council services mean the care system is facing a £1.2 billion black hole by 2014.

Jonathan Clifton, Research Fellow at IPPR, said: “A combination of better targeted public funding and increased personal contributions through social insurance schemes could fill the funding gap. But more investment without real reform of the sector will achieve little.

“We need ‘super carers’ – high calibre people, paid at decent levels, with good career prospects, who are valued by society and equipped to provide personalised services for elderly people.”

Clare Thomas, from the City of London’s City Bridge Trust, which funded the study, said improvements to home care would mean older people “won’t be forced into hospital before it is absolutely necessary”.

“With the number of older people set to rise dramatically, we must act now to prevent a wholesale crisis in home-based care,” she said.

A government commission will publish plans for reforming the funding of home care and residential accommodation for elderly and disabled adults next week.

SOURC:   The Telegrah.co.UK
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