Tag Archives: Katharine Orellana

Outcomes of day centres for older people are highly relevant to policy themes

Posted on by

Katharine OrellanaKatharine Orellana is a Research Assistant at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit in the Policy Institute at King’s. (532 words)

For some, day centres for older people may conjure up images of incessant bingo and unstimulated people sitting around the edges of a dull room in an isolated building away from the community. This was not my experience during the 56 days I spent at four day centres for older people in 2015-16. These visits were for a study which aimed to improve the understanding of the purpose and role of English generalist day centres for older people by painting a rich and contemporary picture of them. I was investigating what they offer, who uses them, why and how, what they contribute to the lives of those involved with them, how they are perceived and how they relate to health and social care services. Continue reading →

What do we know about managers of care homes?

Posted on by
Katharine OrellanaKatharine Orellana is a Research Training Fellow at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit in the Policy Institute at King’s. Katharine’s Care Home Managers: a scoping review of evidence is published today by NIHR School for Social Care Research. (589 words)

We have a tendency to put care home managers at the back of our minds until a crisis hits the headlines. On such sad occasions, there is suddenly a lot of interest in them.

In England, around 460,000 adults live in 17,350 care homes that have a staff body of around 560,000. Care homes are hugely varied in many ways. They range from small, family businesses to large national and multinational chains offering anything from 1 – 215 beds. Homes may cater for more than one group of people, but they all provide accommodation and personal care. Just over a quarter of them also offer nursing, and these account for about half of all places in care homes as they tend to be larger operations. Staff must support residents with increasingly complex needs. Continue reading →