Home care workers are coming under increased pressure by councils across the country to `deal with' frail, elderly and vulnerable people within fifteen minutes. And today public sector trade union, UNISON, slates both local authorities and the ConDem Government for the increase in the practice as it quotes one worker's experience...
"On my run there are a number of fifteen minute visits" the home care worker says "And on the run I have just been given, one visit is to a man in his mid-nineties who is very frail and slow to move, especially in the morning.
"I have been given fifteen minutes to go into his house wake him up assist him to the bathroom, give him a shower, help him get him dry and dressed and then make his breakfast and prompt and make sure he takes his medication" the worker explains "I have told my organiser that this takes at least around thirty to forty-five minutes. Her reply was that other workers can do it in this time."
The Salford Star has been documenting the financial, time and `outsourcing' cuts to home care work in the city over the last few years, with workers warning that it would lead to more suffering and dire strains on hospital A&E departments which has now come to pass (see every national and local news bulletin, and see previous Salford Star articles click here and click here).
Last year, ConDem Government Care Minister, Norman Lamb, stated that fifteen minutes was not enough time for a home care visit. However, the Government's 2014 Care Act does not give the Care Quality Commission (CQC) any power to challenge councils when they commission care through fifteen minute visits - despite calls from unions, providers and service user groups that it should do so, and concerns from the CQC itself about the inadequacy of leaving councils to regulate themselves.
"It is a scandal that fifteen minute visits are on the rise despite assurances from the Government that it would crack down on rushed visits" says UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis "What we are seeing is the institutionalisation of dangerously low levels of care which compromises the dignity of the elderly and vulnerable people in our community who rely on this care, and places unfair pressures on home care workers.
"The Government is cutting council budgets by 40% while the need for care continues to rise" he explains "This forces councils to spread the care budget thinner and thinner trying to make it go round. This symbolises all that is wrong with our increasingly undignified and underfunded care system.
"We know from our members working in home care that fifteen minute visits are not just being used for medication prompts, but that home care workers are being forced to deliver personal care in fifteen minutes" he adds "The Government's decision to sit on its hands flies in the face of its earlier commitment to stamp out the practice of rushed home care visits. For some people, the time they spend with a home care worker is the only human interaction they may have on that day."
Salford Council is one of an increasing number of local authorities which admit to commissioning fifteen minute home care visits. A Freedom of Information request by UNISON, responded to by 98% of councils in the country, revealed that 74% of local authorities still commission fifteen minute visits, compared to 69% in the same survey last year.
In the North West 78% of respondent councils reported using fifteen minute visits in 2014, growing from 68% in 2013. On average, UNISON states, fifteen minute visits make up 14%, or one in seven, of all the homecare visits commissioned by councils.
In the North West, as well as Salford Council, Wigan, Tameside, Trafford, Bolton, Manchester, Rochdale, Stockport, Bury, Warrington, Knowlsey, Halton, St Helens, Wirral, Sefton, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Cumbria reported commissioning fifteen minute care visits in 2014. Only five councils reported not commissioning these visits - Oldham, Liverpool, Lancashire, Blackburn, Blackpool.
See also previous Salford Star article: Salford Stroke Victim Care Cut Horror - click here
* Salford Council Cuts Leave Hundreds of Ill and Elderly People In Danger - click here
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