When the time comes to start looking at care homes for an elderly relative, there are a number of aspects for you to consider: where is the care home – will you be able to visit easily? Can your loved one take personal items? People settle into new places – check out Eastleigh Care Homes in North Devon here – better when they can have their own things around them, but this is not always possible. Will your loved one be looked after properly? And the answer to this question, almost always, is ‘yes’ because residential home staff very often have been led into the profession through a vocation, rather than through the need for a pension and job security as might be the case in other professions. Let us take a moment to celebrate the unsung heroes who staff care and nursing homes.
The Hours are Long
Your loved one’s care home is their home and that means that those elderly people who require full-time care must have someone on hand twenty-four/ seven, whether it is to administer medications or pain-relief, to assist with bathing, toileting, dressing and even eating, or simply to provide a comforting ear – someone to listen to reminiscences or worries. Care home staff can work very long hours – sometimes as much as twelve hours on the trot, for four or five days, picking up extra hours when colleagues are ill or on holiday – but they do it without complaining, knowing that their residents need them to step up. Even those who work shorter shifts spend a lot of time thinking about their residents on their off days.
They Are Qualified
Care home staff are sometimes dismissed by those who have no real understanding of the value of the work done by care homes as being low-value workers who are little better than manual labourers. The truth could not be more different. Care home workers range all the way up to highly qualified nurses who are capable of diagnosing and nursing various ailments, working closely with doctor’s practices and hospitals within the care home’s catchment to ensure that the best possible treatment is given whenever it is needed. Even those care workers who are not registered nurses must have NVQs which include training in all aspects of care home life, from the safe and correct operation of various pieces of equipment (hoists, wheelchairs and more) to persuading a reluctant resident to eat when their appetite is poor.
They Genuinely Love Their Work
Most care home staff look for work within the caring industry because they feel drawn to helping others, especially those who are elderly or otherwise vulnerable. This can mean that the difficulties that others struggle with – helping their loved ones to bathe or dress, for example – are tasks that they complete without even thinking about, ensuring that their residents are clean, warm and well-fed, and all this without losing any dignity.
