Recent ONS data on deaths involving COVID-19 in the adult social care sector and the results of the COVID-19 surveillance study in care and nursing homes has illustrated the fragility of the social care sector before and during the pandemic – particularly in terms of staffing shortages. 

This is likely to have contributed to the scale of the impact we have seen, particularly in care and nursing homes. Findings from the study confirm that those care and nursing homes using bank and agency workers, and a minority that did not offer sick pay to staff, have seen higher rates of infection amongst residents. 

'The adult social care sector has high vacancy and staff turnover rates. Social care staff are generally underpaid –approximately 440,000 directly employed social care staff in England left their jobs in 2018/19. 

With an increase in the demand for more complex nursing care, Organisations are struggling in different ways to find the right number of staff with the appropriate skills. Many care organisations repeatedly face the same common problems – staff shortages, problems with training, financial difficulties, plus others. 

Staff Shortages

There is a real shortage of Registered Nurses and experienced Care Home Managers currently in the UK. The nursing bursary ended in 2016, leading to a sharp decline in people enrolling on nursing courses. It was reintroduced in late 2019, but for the three years in between, the low number of nurses wanting to train has damaged the sector’s core infrastructure.

Many overseas workers who were once attracted to the nursing sector have been dissuaded due to Brexit restrictions. In the year after the referendum, the number of new EU registrations to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fell from 10,000 to 1,000. 

Consider looking in alternative places for your staff and be more open-minded about your criteria. 

You can advertise further afield to attract candidates from across the UK. Working with a partner like Advanced Clinical Solutions who has UK wide coverage means we can travel anywhere to support new staff. Given the rise in zoom training, we can also support remotely, at flexible times to suit new staff members.

Staff Training and Education

Another issue we hear from the adult social care sector is that many staff applying for jobs in the sector are not suitably skilled and have very little experience. Focussing on immediate and robust training for new and unskilled staff members will be of benefit here.

Working with a company such as Advanced Clinical Solutions, to produce a training gap analysis and then filling in the gaps with good quality training and mentorship as well as having a robust induction training plan (ideally at least 12 weeks) can also be of huge benefit to overcome these early challenges. Equally for nurses Advanced Clinical Solutions can quickly up skill nurses with core clinical skills, we can even support with competency assessment and sign off. 

When you create openings for previously unskilled carer workers to train quickly on the job, you open your options up to a broader range of people. With the amount of redundancy that has happened due to COVID-19 in other sectors there are many transferrable skills that can be brought into the care sector. Unfortunately, being in care is not something that just anyone can do – it takes a particular type of person. Many people take on caring jobs and then quickly realise they aren’t cut out for it. This leads to unplanned absences and worse – procedural and conduct issues.

The only way to operate an adult social care organisation with minimal HR issues is to employ the best staff with similar values as the organisation. Using values-based recruitment and running culture, values and vision workshops are all helpful. By using these processes only delivers you the best candidates may reduce the stress later. Advanced Clinical Solutions can support you with culture workshops, defining your organisation values and visions, as well as supporting you to support staff to live these values every day. 

Safe Staffing Levels 

The Care Quality Commission places a lot of emphasis on safe staffing levels and is one of the prompts that are looked at during any inspection. The Care Quality Commission has stated that too many providers are struggling along without having enough staff to deliver safe and effective services. It is not because the staff didn’t care; it was because they didn’t have the time to care as well as they should.

Regulation 18 states:

• Enough suitably qualified, competent, skilled, and experienced persons must be deployed to meet the requirements of this part.

• Persons employed by the service provider in the provision of a regulated activity must:

• Receive such appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision, and appraisal as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform

• Be enabled where appropriate to obtain further qualifications appropriate to the work they perform

• Where such persons are health care professionals, social workers or other professionals registered with a health care or social care regulator, be enabled to provide evidence to the regulator in question demonstrating, where it is possible to do so, that they continue to meet the professional standards which are a condition of their ability to practise or a requirement of their role.

Advanced Clinical Solutions can support with every part of this requirement, from training and education provision, supporting supervisions, help with clinical skills and competence assessments and providing CPD accredited training to support re-validation efforts.

Safe Nursing Indicators 

Advanced Clinical Solutions can also support with identifying the organisational and managerial factors that are required to support safe staffing for nurses, and the indicators that should be used to provide information on whether safe nursing care is being provided. NICE indicate 9 key indicators for Safe nursing, which highlight whether the meeting of nursing care needs is adequate. These are listed below 

• Safe nursing indicator: Adequacy of meeting patients' nursing care needs
• Safe nursing indicator: falls 
• Safe nursing indicator: pressure ulcers
• Safe nursing indicator: medication administration errors
• Safe nursing indicator: missed breaks
• Safe nursing indicator: nursing overtime
• Safe nursing indicator: planned, required and available nurses for each shift
• Safe nursing indicator: high levels and/or ongoing reliance on agency staff
• Safe nursing indicator: compliance with any mandatory training

See how Advanced Clinical Solutions can help you with your staffing challenges 

Book a free consultation with our clinical team here.

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Request a Free Review of your CQC Report