Plenty of care homes use agency staff to cover gaps. We do not, and we have no intention of starting.
It is not a criticism of agency workers, many of whom are very good at their jobs. It is about what happens when the person helping you is a stranger.
Familiarity is part of the care
Most of the people living at Chatsworth have dementia. Being helped to wash or dress is an intimate thing at the best of times, and it is much harder when you do not recognise the person doing it. A carer who knows that someone likes to be woken slowly, or hates having the curtains opened straight away, or calms down if you mention their late husband’s allotment, can make a difficult morning into an ordinary one. A carer meeting them for the first time cannot.
That knowledge does not come from a handover sheet. It comes from months of small conversations, and it only accumulates if the same people keep coming back.
What it takes to do it
It means keeping our staff, which means treating them properly. Our turnover is low. Our manager started here as a domestic more than twenty years ago and worked her way through every job in the building before taking charge. Several of our team have been here for years.
Everyone trains every year, in dementia, Parkinson’s, stroke, diabetes, mental capacity, deprivation of liberty, pressure care, medication, safeguarding and end of life care, among other things. Everyone completes an enhanced criminal record check before they start.
It is a harder way to run a rota. We think the residents can tell the difference, and that is the point.
