Unit 5 Health And Social Care Essay

CQC report (2012) outlined that in order to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of service users, there must at all times be sufficient staff levels for the purposes of carrying out regulated activities. Backing this up is research findings from Royal College of Nursing (2012) which summarized that staffing levels impact patient’s outcomes and experiences. Regulation 20 (1) (a) of The Residential Care Homes Regulations (2005) explains the registered person shall ensure that at all times suitably qualified, competent and experienced staff are working in appropriate numbers for the health and welfare of the residents.

Rqia (2009) outlined that homes for up to 9 residents must have one person in charge, whereas homes with 51-60 residents needs five to six care staff. In general at night the ration needs to be 1:10 (Gerdner and Cornelia, 2006) and if safe ratios are not met it may contribute to poor and inadequate care being received by the elderly service users.

Reader and Gillepie (2013) used published articles and reports regarding neglect mostly using survey methods to gain a systematic review on the nature,
The surveys conducted from the quantitative method emphasised the importance of time to meet the needs of the patients and short staffing conspires to reduce the opportunity to do so. Timing affects the delivery of fundamental importance and high value of care for the elderly within these settings. Unfortunately even if dignified and compassionate care was top of the agenda for trained staff, the pressure they face may result in them not being able to provide this if time and resources were unavailable. Stating that health care assistant’s dignity and values may not be accounted for when delivering care, if staffing levels were an issue (Haynes,