There does seem to be a clear pattern of ignoring these underlying issues in the media, I mean we get isolated reports of poor care every so often but it typically seems to be painted as an aberration rather than part of a widespread culture. The again you could say much the same for coverage of public healthcare as whole, the BBC are rarely willing to point the finger at government cuts and the report typically ends with parroting some dodgy statement about spending levels unquestioningly.
To be clear, I don’t want to say that slapping residents around and mentally torturing them is in any way part of the system. At least, I fucking hope it isn’t.
But hiring anyone who happens to walk through the door and agrees to start straight away and work twelve hour shifts, with minimal training and few colleagues to assist - yeah, daily. Under those circumstances, some shady characters might slip through. As long as you have no criminal convictions, you’re good to go. And staff are always needed.
A poor company happy to take the profits and blag the standards of care? Yep. Absolutely. A girl I worked with years ago got a job for a company charging £1,000-a week fees to look after elderly dementia patients, the daily food allowance for those residents was three pound something. I know there’s other costs to consider, but three quid for three main meals? I pay more for a sandwich. Rats in a residents room, again, someone I knew had that experience. CQC inspection? Suddenly, we’re magically fully staffed, over staffed even compared to usual routine. Had they turned up a day earlier, incognito to visit their Nan or something, it’d be a different story. Which implies that
that level of staffing is what you really need to run a service effectively and at a reasonable level of care...
Paying poorly and putting intolerable workload on people? Yes. It’s stressful, and if you’re getting paid the same wage as the average shelf stacker, but with a million times more pressure on your head, you can’t blame decent staff for thinking: “fuck this”.
Understaffed? Hahaha. That’s standard. I looked after an entire floor of 25+ residents on my own, not willingly, but frustratingly regularly. “Couldn’t get the staff to cover mate, but crack on. Good luck with that.” If I needed help (and most of these people can barely move) then I have to leg it downstairs and try and find someone to lend a hand. Two meagre fifteen minute breaks? No chance, you barely have time to breathe.
Again, none of these are any excuse for the utter cuntitude displayed in some of the cases mentioned in the OP, that’s just people being horrible. But getting to the stage where those people are hired and in some cases a culture of bad care by small groups of those people develop, I can see that happening sadly.
This is not to denigrate the many, many fine and genuinely caring people who do work incredibly hard and try their very best. But y’know, the company makes the profit regardless of whether standards are high or mediocre and of course, business is business...
I mean no right thinking company states openly: ‘shoddy care a speciality, we honestly don’t give a fuck’ but managers get targets for staffing levels, for wages, for expenditure, and someone above them is saying “I know it’s tough at the moment but once x, y & z are sorted we’re turning on the money tap, it’ll pick up...” there’s good faith all down the line. The vast majority of people don’t
want to give bad care or fail those they’re charged with looking after, sometimes they just need to prioritise someone else. Frankly you feel like a piece of shit having to say “not now, sorry. Bit busy, I’ll get to you when I can...”
I’ve never been in to a shareholders meeting or high level management pow-wow so have no idea if a shady business model of exploitation and maximising profits is openly discussed, so I really dunno. No one put out any literature at companies I worked for (some alright, some appalling) saying anything other than the standard feelgoodery and marketing spiel.
I have noticed elsewhere the large amounts of money donated to the Conservative party by certain care providers of course. Around the time Cameron & co took a sledgehammer to the welfare state and the various traditional safety nets began to be dismantled and replaced by the benevolent, wise guiding hand of the free market there was quite a flurry of companies willing to make donations...
In the interests of balance there are companies I’ve heard good things about and who have good reputations for their standards of care. I don’t want to be entirely negative. The systems of running care as reimagined under recent governments don’t particularly seem to be set up with wonderful care as their main and sole aim though.
Just my own opinions and experiences, mind - and baring in mind, I am quite cynical. Worked for the council first all over the shop within their various learning disabilities facilities (no real horror stories there, indeed it looks heavenly from today’s perspective), a care company who took over the care of those with learning disabilities, a general domiciliary care company and a company dealing with elderly dementia patients.
