Monday 12 February 2018

the zero hours contracts social care debacle

zero hours contracts are in my experience extremely difficult for care agencies to manage that said the carers I have are excellent but there is little continuity as the office staff seem unable to manage the level of business they have taken on my care company is a franchise privately purchased and 'run' locally both carers and clients are treated by inefficient office staff as boxes to be ticked in the case of my firm the individual responsible for arranging rotas has the job on the basis of her experience in a doctors surgery which has no similarity to the care  co ordinator roll in the community this leads to late calls frustrated carers who have zero travel time allotted 'sickness is commonplace n as is often the case when management is poor the flakier staff will throw a sickie knowing they'll get away with it because the office is always so desperate to tick the boxes,as customers we have to pay a very significant portion of our meagre benefit income on  our care needs.however comments or complaints are met with well find another company then!so zero customer care whatsoever
having had care for over 20 years i have found 90+% of carers are great but i have only had one company(no longer in the domiciliary care business that had an excellent office which knew how to run a rota for both carers and clients the care quality commission is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike
they announce visits in advance meaning companies can get all their ducks in as row in time for a visit no surprise then that it is impossible to find a care company with a poor rating, though believe me there are plenty which deserve that until the CQC make unannounced visits to care providers both domiciliary and residential quality of care for sick , disabled and elderly people will be at best patchy demand is enormous government attention to