Gwen Harrison of Social Care

Highland News & Media

Watch Gwen Harrison of Social Care - Highland News & Media on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00I'm Gwen Harrison. I'm the independent sector lead for care homes in Highland. Scottish

00:12Care are there to make sure that the social care sector has its voices heard and some

00:19of the challenges that they're facing can be raised where appropriate to try and make

00:22those changes happen. We have 46 independent sector care homes across Highland and, speaking

00:31today, we had approximately 120 vacancies across those homes. There is a crisis in social

00:38care at the moment and the staffing is a big part of that. It is a massive issue and then

00:44the issue with housing almost just amplifies that and makes that situation worse. Probably

00:49because of the tourism. So we have a lack of housing anyway and there is a lack of affordable

00:56housing across the country. That's not a new thing. But because our tourism industry is

01:02growing and growing, obviously that has put a shift in the amount of rental properties

01:07that are available and the price of rentals is huge as well. Care homes will first and

01:14foremost look to recruit locally. They will obviously try and get staff where they can

01:19and then if they have challenges with that, which has been the case, care homes will then

01:25start to look at using overseas recruitment. People coming from overseas, we then need

01:30to find accommodation for them, but also for people coming, moving from Central Belt or

01:35moving from within Highland, then they also need to find accommodation. We've been affected

01:40by things like the changes with Brexit, with some of the tourism that we have and just

01:49the lack of housing that is available. It can start to affect the quality of care that

01:53people can receive. It might then have an effect on people being able to be discharged

01:59from hospital if there aren't spaces available in care homes, if they don't have the staffing

02:04levels to maintain a safe service. Independently, the providers have been doing stuff on their

02:09own. Some of them work along with landlords to directly rent properties. Some of them

02:14have built their own properties, purchased houses. Other providers have built pods on

02:21the space that they have within their care home. I've been part of a conversation looking

02:26at a room rental project to see if that's something that could be grown and used within

02:31Highland, as it's used in other areas. People are trying to do what they can within their

02:36own scope of change. Collaboratively, we are trying to do things alongside the Health

02:43and Social Care Partnership, having conversations with local authority. I think part of it is

02:47actually trying to raise that awareness that it is as big an issue as it is, because sometimes

02:53you talk about the staffing issue, but then you maybe don't talk about actually what are

02:57some of the challenges that are actually causing that staffing issue. I do recall one conversation

03:01by a manager who was talking about the fact that they had offered a job to somebody from

03:07a different part of Highland, and in order for them to be housed, they were going to

03:12have to declare themselves homeless, but there was no guarantee that the homeless accommodation

03:16would be in the same area where they were given the job. It also starts to affect some

03:22of the types of care that people may get if they don't have a regular staff. If you have

03:27to start using agency, then that means that it might not be a regular staff team that's

03:32there. It also might impact that the staff who actually are there are starting to feel

03:37kind of overwhelmed or burnt out in terms of the continual shifts that they might be

03:43having to cover a shortfall. Our society can't maintain itself if we don't have those people

03:49working in those roles. They are looking for our most loved ones, our most vulnerable in

03:55society, so really they are key workers and should be regarded as such. I think sometimes

04:00health and social care is talked about in the same sentence, so almost trying to recognise

04:06that independent sector social care is a separate entity within that conversation as well. We

04:12have independent sector businesses who are running care homes or care at home services

04:17who are trying to look after our most vulnerable loved ones at the same time as trying to make

04:24a business that allows them to survive in a really challenging situation. There is an

04:29issue there because I don't think it's even recognised, I don't think the staffing crisis

04:33is wholly recognised and I don't think it's recognised that actually part of that is the

04:37lack of accommodation.

Category

Transcript

Recommended