Any care assistants?

~Diamond~

When I was at college a few years ago doing care NVQ there was a lot of other care assistants there as well. One of them was a home carer and he said he was getting out of it for the same reasons you have mentioned, number one being no support.

I have worked in care homes, mainly nursing homes. Other members of my family work in rest homes. I would go for these any day over community care for these reasons:

- You get a set rota each week and once your shift is over you go home.
- You have the support of other carers and depending on the home nurses as well, more for the nursing homes that one.
- You know that you will be getting a regular 40 hour wage each week + any overtime you want to do.
- It's not as isolating as you work with other carers.
- As you are not running around all over the town it's less exhausting and stressful.

If she doesn't mind the work and isn't set on doing community care work then I would say try a care home for a while and see how she likes it. If she wants to go back to community care then get with another agency, there are some good ones out there.

onetomany

u dont get travel time because if you did it would mean less work, our company says you can be 15 mins late im very raley unless on call ring me because there is another carer of etc, once you get to no your run u will get used to ive done this for a year and the first 6 months i hated it, but the way i see it its a job and im helping people so i love it , most of our carers have came from homes and said they hate it etc , dont forget to claim ur petrol back from tax, and you need business car insurance a lot of carers dont no this , keep up the good work hun and just rember it can get tough but you are a lot of peoples life line x

clangnuts

sapphireeye wrote: »

It leaves me in a position where I have to make the choice between starting early and finishing late in order to see everyone and give them the time they've paid for or cutting their visits short, and I refuse to do the latter because they're paying for me to be there for a set length of time and they shouldn't have to be penalised, especially when most of the time there is barely enough time to do everything that's needed as it is. .

:T

That alone tells me how well suited you are to such a responsible job caring for people.

sapphireeye

onetomany wrote: »

u dont get travel time because if you did it would mean less work, our company says you can be 15 mins late im very raley unless on call ring me because there is another carer of etc, once you get to no your run u will get used to ive done this for a year and the first 6 months i hated it, but the way i see it its a job and im helping people so i love it , most of our carers have came from homes and said they hate it etc , dont forget to claim ur petrol back from tax, and you need business car insurance a lot of carers dont no this , keep up the good work hun and just rember it can get tough but you are a lot of peoples life line x

So how do you manage to get places on time with 0 minutes to get anywhere and not cutting visits short? I'm interested because I don't get a chance to talk to other care assistants so I have no idea how they do it. Even with the rounds I do know I still can't do it.

einalem

I did this job for 2 days 16 hours out of house per day but only got paid for 2/3 of that(cancelled visits, big gaps in days but I was paired up with a nother carer so could not go home etc as she was in my car!)
would never do it again
care homes are much better, you are paid for what you work and you get better supervision

Savvy_Sue

kingfisherblue wrote: »

Something you haven't mentioned - a union. If you're not in one, please consider joining. Hopefully you will never need them, but they will be there for you if you do need support or advice. You can't usually join to get help on a problem that already exists, so join before a problem starts - think of it as insurance. My daughter is in Unison and the monthly fee is on a sliding scale, according to average wages each month.

Meant to suggest this very thing earlier, also check whether others are members, because several of you raising the same questions with a union behind you is likely to have more impact than several individuals, some of whom haven't been there very long.

KoalaBear wrote: »

Although the company doesn't pay for mileage allowance you can claim it back off the tax man at the end of each year. I think it works out as 23p per mile.. but don't quote me on that.

You don't exactly claim it back, but if your employer has not paid you any mileage then you can offset the tax you have paid on the mileage you've incurred but not been reimbursed for against the tax you've paid.

That sounds incomprehensible to me, and I typed it! Look at what the HMRC page says.

eyelinerprincess

I did this for a couple of months before being dismissed for ridiculous reasons - apparently I wasn't doing the work correctly, even though I was following the care plan and doing what was asked of me.
On the day I was dismissed, I was given an extra shift, with clients I didn't know very well, on a day where the weather was so bad that the advice given every 5 minutes on the radio was "don't go out AT ALL except when necessary". The combination of extremely hazardous driving conditions and having to take time to read the detailed care plans meant I was running quite late. I worked through the down time between clients (basically doing six hours solid without a break) to catch up and eventually finished on time, but that didn't matter to them. I also believe that one of the clients had complained about me for not knowing where anything was and what her routine was (where she sat for breakfast etc), when I had been there only twice, both times for dinner and the only duties then were to make her dinner and serve it to her on her living room chair.

I found that I had the exact same experience as sapphireeye -

Split shifts (starting at 7am, having three or four hours rest, then finishing at 10pm);

Having basically no support system at all;

Being called at short notice to cover shifts, then being made to feel bad if you couldn't cover (even being called to cover when I had asked for a couple of days off as holidays due to a prior engagement);

Waiting around for up to an hour between appointments;

Being yelled at down the phone if you were late due to something out of your control;

No travelling time at all (being told basically to take 10 minutes off one appointment - 5 at the start, 5 at the end);

Being called in the middle of one appointment while I was making dinner because the next client was "desperate for the commode and couldn't wait";

Training which in no way prepared me for going out into the "real world" and doing the job.


I would never do that kind of work again. In the time I was unemployed, I was asked to apply for similar work (and even asked to apply to the company that dismissed me), and on both occasions I refused.

slowandsteady_2

I i were you i'd get out asap. Ive been doing dom care for a year and i too have a weekly rota, zero hours contract, no mileage, no time between clients etc. As for the time beteween clients, its the computer thats spits out the rotas and on paper it can look like you're supposed to be in two places at once, but you soon come to learn the 'time critical' calls and can learn your own way of doing things accordingly.

As for being out x amount of hours and only getting maybe half that time in pay, that is hard and im in the same boat. We have to login on a clients phone so are literally paid by the minute, or if there is no phone complete the total minutes on a time sheet.

It is not a good job to be in other than for flexibility, i have always worked in care and have stayed here so long because i enjoy it but you have to think of yourself. The wear and tear on my car has been unbelievable and i have spent far more on it than its worth just to keep my job.

I have started maternity leave this week and i will not be going back.

If you still want to work in care i suggest checking the local papers and direct.gov website for local care home jobs and even ringing them on spec as they have high turnover of staff often. Google for local nursing agencies in your area that will probably snap you up and will offer you proper shifts in homes, nhs etc and regular hours. Granted thats not ideal but its a start.

I wish you the best of luck x

eyelinerprincess

I would agree with slowandsteady - try and ring around local care homes, even to just fill out a speculative application. You'll have been through the training, which will work to your advantage, and the positives of working in a care home environment outweigh the positives of working in home care. My partner works for a local home and I would have preferred to work somewhere like that than in homes, however, with me being dismissed from the home care position, nowhere was willing to take me on.

moneybagsuk

Agree with the last two posters. Care homes are nearly always looking for staff. If your signature is right on your location, try this link for nursing home care assistant jobs in berkshire there's a few options there