The safety of disabled people who rely on homecare is being put at risk because staff are receiving inadequate training, according to a UNISON study published today.
The survey of more than 1,000 care workers employed by councils and private firms across the UK, found that staff are increasingly being asked to perform intimate procedures that would previously have only been carried out by registered nurses.
Changing catheter bags, peg feeding, stoma care, administering medication and looking after patients with dementia are just some of the difficult tasks that homecare workers carry out, even though many receive little or no training.
Inadequate training can leave care users in significant discomfort and vulnerable to infections. And, worse still, insufficient training on how to administer medication could lead to fatal overdoses, says UNISON.
Meanwhile, homecare workers are being denied access to vital knowledge, new skills and career opportunities, the survey finds.
Of the homecare workers surveyed who regularly carry out the following tasks:
- Almost six in ten had received no training in how to attach or change a convene catheter.
- More than half had not been shown how to perform stoma care.
- More than four in ten had not received training in how to change a catheter bag.
- More than a third hadn’t been showed how to carry out peg feeding.
Almost a quarter of staff administering medication had received no training, despite some of them distributing drugs such as liquid morphine and insulin.
More than two thirds said they cared for people who suffer from dementia. Despite this, more than a quarter had received no training in how to work with people with this illness.
More than three-quarters of respondents had asked for extra training to help them carry out their increasingly demanding roles, but less than half had received any.
UNISON says that the survey suggests that homecare workers are feeling increasingly uncomfortable with a system that is sending them into the homes of people with complicated needs, with the bare minimum of training, or in some cases, no guidance at all.
UNISON believes that the government’s new care certificate – which came into force this month – does little to address the increasing lack of training for care workers. It is also only aimed at new employees. The certificate merely provides a basic induction to care, is not mandatory, and the training provided by the employer is neither monitored nor assessed.
This lack of training is compounded by the fact that homecare workers are increasingly being forced to carry out their roles within shorter periods of time, as a growing number of councils use 15-minute visits. Many employees are not being allocated the same care users, preventing them from building relationships with any of the people they care for.
Despite being expected to carry out increasingly difficult tasks with more responsibility, many homecare workers are being paid below the national minimum wage. This is because non-payment of travel time and care workers having to pay for their petrol, uniforms and mobile phones.
The UNISON homecare report, Time to Care, is available to download from their website.