Call to target school leavers to help plug Highland home care gaps
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TEENAGERS are being targeted by NHS Highland to plug a chronic shortage of home carers.
Health bosses are hoping school-leavers will be attracted by a new recruitment drive that seeks people without experience for the growing industry.
The new move comes after lack of carers in Badenoch and Strathspey was highlighted by a patient who is still waiting to get home from hospital three months after getting the all-clear following an operation to amputate her leg.
And in Inverness, a woman with Huntington’s Disease, who struggles to walk, talk and feed herself and needs help to shower and get dressed, has been without carers for more than a fortnight after a fall-out with her care company.
Jean Pierre Sieczkarek, manager of the health board’s care at home service in South and Mid Highland, the situation could not go on.
“It’s intolerable and I hate it,” he said. “It angers me that I have people in hospital who can’t leave because we can’t provide care in their home.”
The move to attract younger carers comes amid mounting concerns people are not getting the help they need because of a shortage of home carers.
Mr Sieczkarek said around 40 people, mainly pensioners, are stuck in hospital right now because there are no vacancies at care homes or no carers available to treat them in their own homes.
Debbie Michie has been fit enough to go home to Nethy Bridge since April, but sits confined to a room on ward D at Ian Charles Hospital in Grantown. The 61-year-old had her leg amputated after suffering with rheumatoid arthritis.
And a family campaigning to have their severely disabled 51-year-old mother moved out of a damp city centre flat at King Street in Inverness have complained to a human rights group amid claims she was “abandoned” by her carers.
Marie Smith’s family says the wrangle over the condition of the flat has caused a fall out and carers who stopped coming a fortnight ago. Relatives are calling round several times a day to prepare Mrs Smith’s meals and to help her to shower and dress.
Her daughter Emma Doit (28) said social workers advised it could be months before she can move and a care package is not yet possible.
Mr Sieczkarek, whose remit covers the inner Moray First area, including Nairn and Inverness and as far south as Cannich and Newtonmore, and stretching up to Tain in the north, said the health board was struggling to keep up with demand, which was growing at an incredible rate.
He added: “Approximately 50 people per month are referred to us for home care, and at the same time approximately 20 people come off our books every month for various reasons, they go into a care home, some pass away. That’s 360 people per year who are added to our books and we are constantly trying to find additional resources.”
And with too few carers, he said, recruitment drives in the past have done little more than shuffle the bank of workers around.
He said: “NHS Highland employs seven private care companies in the Inner Moray Firth Area. All we end up doing is stealing from each other. All we do is we move our workforce around, it’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul. So to that end targeting young people and working more closely with schools absolutely has to be our focus.”
Part of the “long-term plan” will see carers going into school to talk-up the industry. “We could also set up apprenticeships,” said Mr Sieczkarek. “It would almost be like providing a foundation course. They can start off in care and move on to social work or nursing. They can get their SVQ Level 4 and they would have a really good CV. We could give them references. What we’re going to try to do is sell it as a career.”
What do you think? Have you or your son or daughter recently left school? Could the NHS persuade you to enter the industry? editor@rsjournal.co.uk
