Fair Care Work: A Post COVID-19 Agenda for Employment Relations in Health and Social Care

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Stephen Martineau

Ian Kessler, Stephen Bach, Richard Griffin and Damian Grimshaw introduce their new paper, Fair care work. A post Covid-19 agenda for integrated employment relations in health and social care, published yesterday by King’s Business School. Lead author, Professor Kessler, is Deputy Director of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce. (908 words)

The courage and sacrifice of the health and social care workforce have emblazoned themselves on the national consciousness as the challenge of COVID-19 continues. While classified as ‘key workers’, along with other occupations essential to the community in times of crisis, the distinctive contribution of frontline care workers, reflected in their direct and relentless engagement with the virus, has until recently been reflected in the Thursday night applause reserved for them. This public applause sits uneasily, however, with the treatment of over two million health and social care employees, mostly women, often from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, typically in undervalued, relatively low paid and insecure employment. In a new paper, we seek to kick start a policy debate on the development of fair care work, to stimulate discussion on a refreshed employment relations (ER) agenda which acknowledges and reflects the worth of care workers to our individual and communal well-being. Continue reading →

From desk to doorstep

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Stephen Martineau

Living well with dementia is important, though there may come a time when initiating social contact becomes a challenge. For some people living with dementia there may be increased isolation. For those living with a partner or family and friends, as dementia progresses their daily care needs may be hard to manage or support.

Attending a day service which offers stimulating activities, whilst at the same time providing respite for family carers, benefits not only the person with dementia, but also helps families continue their support.

The COVID-19 lockdown brought an end to this overnight.

Foreseeing the psychological or emotional consequences of the loss of day centre support, one day centre has switched to offering daily support via phone calls to its former attenders and their carers. Additionally, as day centre staff have great experience in providing ‘customer care’ to relatives, they quickly became part of the COVID-19 Emergency Shielding Residents Response. Continue reading →

Cameos of Care Homes: stories from social care Vanguards

Posted on September 19, 2018 by Stephen Martineau

Jess Harris is Research Fellow at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London. She led the Cameos of Care Homes project. (616 words)

Six ‘Vanguard’ areas across England have been developing approaches to enable care homes to better support the increasingly complex health needs of their residents. These six, focusing on ‘Enhanced Health in Care Homes’, were among 50 Vanguard pilot areas (2015 to 2018) tasked with developing models of care that can be sustained and replicated across England, helping the health and social care system tackle financial pressures and rising demands.

A recent National Audit Office (NAO) report has examined the Vanguards’ impact so far, in terms of value for money, and concluded: ‘there are early signs of a positive impact on emergency admissions’. However, at this early stage it cautions that ‘the longterm impact and sustainability of Vanguards is still not proven’. (page 47)

Staff members taking part in ‘Cameos of Care Homes’

Continue reading →

Providing Support and Care from a Distance

Posted on May 14, 2017 by

Caroline White of the University of Hull is seeking participants in a new study. (462 words)

Family members and friends often provide support, help and care to others, instead or in addition to paid sources of care and support. These people (often referred to as carers, although this term is not embraced by all) are collectively estimated to save the UK economy £132 billion per year (according to figures from Carers UK in 2015) and have been the subject of much research and policy development. The majority of existing research about carers concerns those who support someone who lives with or near to them. However, as we become an increasingly geographically mobile population many parents, adult children, siblings, other relatives and friends find themselves living at a distance from those they care for and about. A new research project at the University of Hull is working to find out more about the experiences of those who provide help, care and support to a relative or friend who lives at a distance from them (we are meaning that they have to travel for one hour or more to visit them). Continue reading →

Men? Have your circumstances changed?

Posted on June 25, 2015 by

Dr Valerie Lipman is Honorary Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit. (553 words)

We don’t see much about the lives of older men in the field of social care. The focus tends to be on older women, partly because women’s life expectancy is longer and perhaps, because in the care field, women are more visible in the traditional care settings, such as day centres and care homes. ‘Have your circumstances changed?’, a triptych of duets between an ageing man and a boy of about 10-12 years of age, stages the daily routine of a single older man.

The three short pieces, about 15 minutes each, are set in sequence in a kitchen, living room and bathroom, showing a different older man managing life on his own. The performance takes place in the windows of a former furniture shop in a former shopping mall in Islington, north London. There’s no dialogue but just a series of noises of daily living. In the kitchen the man accidentally tips his rice crispies all over the floor, the sink gurgles, he thumps his knife into an onion, and butter splutters in a frying pan on the cooker all against the background of Radio 2. In the living room the TV blares out quiz shows, football and the Generation Game. And in the bathroom we hear the toilet flush, medicines fall out of the cabinet and imagine the scraping of shaving and the sizzing of false teeth in the glass. Continue reading →

New models of social care

Posted on March 12, 2015 by

The Centre for Policy on Ageing (CPA) and Co-operatives UK arranged a roundtable event on 18 February 2015 to foster greater understanding and consider the development of social care co-operatives. Dave Martin (an associate with CPA) reports from the gathering. (753 words)

‘Hardly a month goes by without another scare story about aspects of our health and care services. Is there a democratically accountable ownership model for health and care services that could make a difference? Could the active membership and co-operative ownership of workers, service users, volunteers and family members rebuild public trust in services and put an end to cruelty and neglect through a socially inclusive solution where the system of care is owned by the recipients?

In a growing number of countries, from Europe to Canada and Japan, diverse co-operative models of social care are expanding. We believe these approaches can be further developed in the UK and that they would benefit the lives of vulnerable people by empowering them directly in decisions that affect their care.’—Pat Conaty (Research Associate, Co-operatives UK) in The Guardian, 4 July 2014.

The roundtable event was attended by a diverse group of people, described as three circles of interest—first, people who had been involved with the co-operative movement for some time, secondly people seeking to develop (or convert to) a co-operative model for the delivery of care, looking for support and assistance, and thirdly policymakers and commissioners sniffing around—is this the way for the future? Continue reading →

Just do it!

Posted on March 2, 2015 by

John Burton has worked in social care since 1965 as a practitioner at all levels. His book, Leading Good Care, is just out from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (1,342 words)

In Leading Good Care, I set out and recommend a positive and hopeful vision of social care. My subtitle—the task, heart and art of managing social care—is both realistic and idealistic. The task requires serious, disciplined, hands-on, and hard work. The heart signifies that this work is emotional and personal, and that care is a human relationship. And the art of managing care engages your skills, your imagination, your culture and creativity. Continue reading →

On compassionate care

Posted on February 16, 2015 by

Dr Joan Rapaport reports on the seventh Annual Joint Conference of the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, Making Research Count, and Age UK London (with support from the British Society of Gerontology), which took place at King’s last week. (2,508 words)

In her welcoming introduction, Professor Jill Manthorpe (Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London) said the topic ‘Compassionate Care’ had been chosen to explore what we mean by compassion, where it might be needed in older people’s care, its place within the hierarchy of priorities and whether it concerns individuals or wider social relationships. She said the purpose of the conference was to find out:

Where is the passion in compassion?
Should we all be compassionate all the time?
Do all older people want compassion?

Continue reading →

View from the Frozen North

Posted on January 23, 2015 by

Last July we heard from the Cumbria Registered Social Care Managers’ Network (What can the city banks learn from social care?). At their most recent meeting, Network members discussed issues associated with providing care closer to home. (732 words)

Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, braved icy conditions to attend the Cumbria Registered Social Care Managers’ Network on Friday 16 January 2015. The aim of the meeting was to explore from social care mangers’ perspectives some of the challenges of delivering care closer to home. Given the pressures currently facing the hospital acute sector and especially Accident and Emergency Departments, discussions of care closer to home are especially topical as it explores how community health and social care staff can work together to keep people out of hospital where appropriate or to help them come home earlier. Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Care work