Covid in Scotland: Teachers asked to work in Glasgow care homes as staff hit by Omicron

Josieann

I guess they're desperate Aveline so what else can they do other than to appeal and hope some will come forward? I keep thinking what if that were my mum in the care home being left with no care, it is upsetting. I think I would offer a bit of time were I younger, the nature of the work shouldn't put people off.

Whether they're "put off" isn't the issue. The issue is that people are being expected to do tasks for which they'll receive no training. Old people have choked to death and fallen on the way to the toilet because they were "helped" by people who didn't know what they were doing.

growstuff you obviously feel very strongly about this issue, but you must realise that the alternative is that people won’t be cared for. This is an in extremis solution, and trained carers will be supervising untrained staff, who will be taught how to perform basic tasks. Is it better that people aren’t fed, or not taken to the toilet than being taken by somebody who is new to the task but has been shown how to do it?

I'm just wondering if it's already anticipated that schools will be closed after Christmas (to slow down transmission). Teachers will be 'spare' then - so put them to good use in advance?

Casdon

growstuff you obviously feel very strongly about this issue, but you must realise that the alternative is that people won’t be cared for. This is an in extremis solution, and trained carers will be supervising untrained staff, who will be taught how to perform basic tasks. Is it better that people aren’t fed, or not taken to the toilet than being taken by somebody who is new to the task but has been shown how to do it?

What you don't seem to take into account is that supervising somebody properly takes time away from the main task. There's nothing worse than a bunch of clueless volunteers.

Yes, I do feel strongly about the issue. Care work isn't unskilled work and unskilled people shouldn't be expected to "muck in".

Hetty58

I'm just wondering if it's already anticipated that schools will be closed after Christmas (to slow down transmission). Teachers will be 'spare' then - so put them to good use in advance?

No, they won't be "spare". They will be juggling online and face-to-face learning. Secondary school teachers will still be preparing pupils for exams, the planning and administration of which took a great deal of time and stress last year - and all this, while feeding people in care homes!

growstuff I do know what I’m talking about. I fully appreciate that care is a skilled role, having worked in the NHS for 40+ years. However, I also know from experience that people can be trained to perform tasks which greatly support trained staff very quickly, and that trained staff are happy to do the training because it helps them. This happened a number of times through my career, when porters, admin staff, works and estates staff and pathology staff were redeployed to support the nurses and domestic staff on the wards. Needs must.

Yes, they can be trained. By the way, one of my sisters had a very senior role in training care staff, so I know (second hand) what I'm talking about. However, any decent training takes time and diverts skilled staff from their own roles.

What strikes me is that this is a decision taken by people who really don't understand the skills required for caring roles. Teaching and care work are designated as "caring", by the bods in their offices, who really don't understand the different skills required.

Caring jobs are not regarded as high status and are, therefore, paid poorly. They're mainly "female" roles and females are somehow deemed as natural carers. IMO this undermines the specific skills which are required for specific roles.

Casdon

growstuff I do know what I’m talking about. I fully appreciate that care is a skilled role, having worked in the NHS for 40+ years. However, I also know from experience that people can be trained to perform tasks which greatly support trained staff very quickly, and that trained staff are happy to do the training because it helps them. This happened a number of times through my career, when porters, admin staff, works and estates staff and pathology staff were redeployed to support the nurses and domestic staff on the wards. Needs must.

How long did it take to train them? Was the quality of training assessed?

Hetty58

I'm just wondering if it's already anticipated that schools will be closed after Christmas (to slow down transmission). Teachers will be 'spare' then - so put them to good use in advance?

To be honest, there was more work during online teaching in lockdown last year than in school. None of the existing resources I had were able to be used for online teaching. Everything had to either be reinvented OR tranferred into a different format, suitable to be used with students who had no handouts, no classroom resources. I was up, every bl**dy night, trying to see my 'online' teaching through the eyes of my weakest students. The ones that I would normally sit with, explain 121 with, correct the books of as I went round the classroom.

I was really glad to be back to teaching in person. So much easier.

I wasn't in that position GagaJo, but I was in communication with many teachers for whom that was the case.

I did what I could (which wasn't a lot) but I provided quality online resources for free for teachers who didn't have the time to work miracles.

There is no way in the world that teachers could take on an extra role (in addition to online and face-to-face teaching) without something suffering. As it is, Nadhim Zahawi has been pleading with retired teachers to go back into the classroom to help out.

Quite frankly, if teachers are so valued in an emergency, it begs the question why their terms and conditions and pay are relatively so poor and why the Daily Mail Mail (and some others) are so keen to smear them.

Did you not see that I already said it was not just teachers that they were appealing for, that they would be paired with experienced staff and would receive enhanced rates. A perfectly reasonable request. Might suit some people very well. It's only short term.

Aveline

Did you not see that I already said it was not just teachers that they were appealing for, that they would be paired with experienced staff and would receive enhanced rates. A perfectly reasonable request. Might suit some people very well. It's only short term.

Yes, I read your post. I still think it's a daft idea.

If local authority care homes want people to do the "skivvy" jobs (ie those which require minimum training), they should have been thinking about recruitment policies for years - not guilt tripping people to step into the breach.

Care work is a skilled role. Skills should be rewarded and appropriately rewarded financially. It's not something which any Tom, Dick, Harry (or female equivalents) can be picked off the street to do.

I'm surprised that so many of you feel that care workers are highly trained. They do most of their training in work - and there's quite a large turnover of staff.

I saw so many things go wrong with my mother's care, neglectful, idiotic and potentially dangerous too.

growstuff and GagaJo, you misunderstand. The proposal I heard had nothing to do with online learning and set work - or schools being staffed. It was simply a case of extending the Christmas holidays - quite alarming!

I understand what you mean Hetty58 and as we know, private schools can often have a week or two longer than state schools at Christmas anyway, so it could work. The week could actually be taken from the lengthy summer holidays by going back earlier to the new school year. Most parents are working at home anyway from January 4th and this is the easiest time to entertain the kids at home because they have their presents and good tv to watch. It would require teachers to rehash their programmes of study a bit, but it is not unsurmountable if it helps the care sector.

Growstuff replied to me:

"Quite frankly, no vulnerable person should ever be washed and fed by an "amateur" with no training. Even these so-called basic tasks require skill."

I agree. However I imagine homes are so short staffed that it's better to be fed , hydrated, and washed by a biddable amateur than not at all. Teachers are able to accept instructions and use their initiative and power of observation.

No one is being forced to do this they have been asked to volunteer IF they think they can help .Surely we saw tens of thousands of volunteers in the past 20 months in roles they would have had no experience of.
If I was in a better frame of mind I'd do it,I'm not "trained" but I did look after a doubly incontinent mother for 12 years and I'm sure there are many just like me out there who would have hated their elderly relatives to be left to sit in their own waste if someone could help .
I dont understand this "teachers are a special case" thing are they not just humans like the rest of us who would willingly help where they can

Good heavens. It's a Christmas miracle, but I completely agree with paddyann on this!

Well said, Casdon It’s not rocket science. Anyone with a caring nature and fully qualified with common sense are being asked if they would be a pair of willing hands during a pandemic.

Stop nit picking Growstuff People who feel they are capable of helping out will do so. Those who really feel they would be no help, which I appreciate as there are those who know this is something they can’t do, won’t. No one is being forced for the umpteenth time.

Well said Paddyann.

Yes, well said PaddyAnne " Well done too! I bet amateurs like you can teach a lot of useful knowledge.

Yes it's better than nothing but actually the attitude that anyone can do it is partly why we are in this position in the first place. Caring for the elderly and those with disabilities is a skill that actually not that many people possess. I have managed care services for a long time, I would be an absolutely terrible teacher and I am sure many teachers would be terrible carers. We should have never let the situation get to this. Many of us who work in care or who receive care have been talking about this for a long time.

Galaxy, do you reckon the solution to the care crisis is to include care homes and cared -for people as patients of the NHS?

I am not sure about that, the best care homes I have worked in (children with disabilities not elderly care) have been run by the local authority or by large charities (the likes of Barnardos) but we were also doing increasingly medical tasks.
There is something that makes me react instinctively against being part of the NHS, perhaps because the majority of children in our care werent ill. Sorry that doesnt answer your question well.

Thanks Galaxy. Preventive medicine is in some important respects indistinguishable from education. Patients of GPs are encouraged to be active in their own medical care as much as possible. Children at school learn life skills. The suddenly-acquired public understanding of infection control and immunology, together with the strange specialist lexicon , is astounding.

Would you say that your concern centres on how local administration is better than central administration?