I spoke to James O Brien on LBC discussing care homes today and whether cameras should be considered as a preventative measure against abuse. I didn't manage to get all my points out coherently as he can sometimes be a condescending bliter (in a warm-hearted way) but it makes me so mad honestly and that interrupts my thoughts. Plus the fact that I am pregnant now and it's extra hard to stay in control of my emotions at the moment.
Anyway so the first point, I made clearly but I will reiterate for clarity sake. Dementia is so debilitating, that cherishing and protecting the choices a resident is able to make, is paramount. Nothing trumps that. The majority of residents, do not want cameras in their rooms.
Staff members who are intent on abuse or who are lazy and neglectful, will find a way round the cameras whether they are actually present in a room or the possibility of their presence is suspected. James suggested that the cameras might make staff be..."on their best behaviour" but is that the kind of people we want in our care homes!? We want staff who regard Best Practice as the norm and who don't rely on cameras being present to force them to behave like a regular human being should.
Cameras are lazy. Managers and overseeing agencies should be doing their friken job!!!
A more cost effective solution would be for CQC to enrol a 'new employee' once in every while. Give it three months and their eyes will have been the 'camera' without compromising any resident's dignity or preferences. This would be a far more (cost) effective deterrent as current staff will obviously suspect all new recruits and it would be a far more practical way to gather information. If there is bad practice and abuse, that new staff member will come across it in a three month period - for sure.
Managers, especially of larger residential care homes, don't have it in their own interests to getting rid of staff who they have invested training in and who make themselves invaluable by picking up extra hours when staff shortages invariably occur. They sack that person and the management are faced with calling in expensive agency workers to cover until they can go through the lengthy process of finding and training another full time worker to take the place or the one they just had to let go.
There is always the danger though, of the recently sacked individual, getting another job in a care home somewhere else. I think they should all be prosecuted; really it's the most heinous crime to abuse a vulnerable human being.
It's down to CQC to get their act together. Turning up unexpected (yeh really!? Like the home doesn't know they are coming pfft!), checking the paperwork (like paperwork can't be edited!!), and chatting at reception for 10 minutes with the home manager, while staff are scurrying around getting out the best china, figuratively speaking, is disgustingly inadequate.
Damn, ask me, and I will leave my job and work for CQC undercover. I will total weed out the dogs in the system.
I want a bump in salary and a nice car though.
