Carers ask to help ease Fife hospital beds crisis

Home carers in Fife have urged social work managers to maximise their potential to help deal with the region’s bed-blocking crisis.

The Courier has been contacted by two serving home carers who claim they are currently working less than their contracted hours-and say they are not alone in that situation.

The two employees, who did not wish to be named, want the local authority to see where home carers could be put to good use and use them, where possible, to ease the situation in Fife’s hospitals.

“We’re all paid contract hours, but every girl I know is under their contract,” one of them said. “If they are not taking people out of hospital, we’re not getting any more work but the staff are here, the staff are available, and it just seems crazy to me.

“On one occasion, someone was off and the whole shift was put into private care. I can imagine what that’s costing the council. But these people stuck in hospital could be coming home and receiving home care.

“I know of at least seven girls who are under their contracts and asking for work; the problem is it seems Fife Council don’t want them to get more work.”

The other carer also contacted The Courier yesterday and echoed her colleague’s sentiments.

“We’re well down on our contracts and looking for work,” she said.

“My contract is 31 hours and I’m not working my contract at the moment because they did away with us doing domestic work.

“No staff”

“The council are saying they haven’t got the staff to cover, we’re saying we don’t have enough hours, so what’s happening?

“If they are not taking on clients, that will cause the bed-blocking to get worse but two or three girls could be giving these people care-they just don’t seem to be trying any more.”

The home carer also said she was worried about the council’s push towards reablement, helping people to live as independently as possible in their own homes, and the prospect of private carers being relied upon even more.

However, Rona Laing, head of older people’s services, thanked home carers across Fife for their efforts and their willingness to help but admitted matching staff to the hours when care is needed remains a challenge.

“I do appreciate that staff are looking to be as helpful as they can but what I can say is we’re using staff to the absolute utmost that we can,” she said.

“We’re delivering 22,000 hours of home care and we’ve got 1200 staff to do that.

“The challenge is that there’s not always the availability of hours at the time we need them-many people will require help in the morning and at night and it’s often a challenge of matching staff with that.

“Any home carer who thinks they can do more hours should take that to their manager and if they find they are getting nowhere, I’m happy to take any query forward.

“The needs of older people are growing, we know that, and we do try to use staff time as efficiently as possible.”

Mrs Laing said the council recently introduced a new electronic scheduling system that has proved to be hugely successful in helping managers tackle the staffing challenge, particularly during the recent bout of bad weather.