We spoke with Ian Callam from NR Care to ask him about good employment and business practice. 

Transcript:

 Tell me what does it mean to the residents and what does it mean to your staff who are working with the residents?

I think the staff really enjoy working here because it’s a lovely setting. It’s a really nice environment in terms of their working day. They’ve got one location to come to. They’re not having to travel in between different people, which in terms of home care can be one of, you know. Physically, that’s one of the hardest parts of home care.

Getting from A to B to C within tight time scales. The other part of home care that can be really tough is if you’re working with somebody and as you’re leaving, they just wanna have a chat with you because you’re only person they’ll see all day. And that’s an incredibly hard emotional strain.

I’ve done visits like that myself, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. You’ve got to go because the next person needs you for that person. Or, you know, you’ve, you’ve met all their care needs, you know. They’re clean, they’ve had their medication. They’re dressed, they’re, you know, so it’s not that they’ve been neglected because they’ve had their, their physical needs met, but they just wanted that bit more time from you and you haven’t been able to give it.

Which, if you’ve got care round where you do four, about four or five times a day every day. That’s hard. As a worker, that’s why, you know, that’s a big contributor to turnover within home care in general. Whereas here. Even though the visits are quite short because it’s all in one location.

They build that relationship, but you know, ’cause they see the same people day in, day out, or again, and it tends to be for the people who we maybe don’t support every day, who maybe we visit once, twice, three times a week.

We try and make sure it’s the same staff who see them more regularly, so that if you’ve got people, you know, if you’ve got a visit. Two visits a week, it’s probably the same two or three people who come. So that, that’s where the, you know, so, so there’s a lot of things that the staff like,  because in general, the residents are happy and content.

With general life, obviously everyone has ups and downs. You know, they’re working with people who are quite settled and happy, whereas because they have support with things like the housework and the cleaning you’re working in, you know, you’re working in a nice environment, which all these things make a difference.

Again, it’s really tough if you’re going to people’s houses and it’s not, you know, you’ve gotta almost clean it, tidy before you can even, before you can even start doing your work, which when you are on a half hour, 45 minute, hour call, that’s half your time gone. Absolutely.”