Prolix Initiative - Care workers case study Essay Example for Free

Prolix Initiative Care workers case study EssayKevin Pudney and Malcolm Rose have worked in the get by sector for all over 20 years. Their most recent job is part of a European realize aimed at improving reading and development in business and speeding the measure to competency. more than information on the research project is available on the Prolix website (www.prolixproject.org). The project was conducted in compact with Social Care Institute of honesty. The social treat sector in UK was chosen to test the impertinently systems developed as part of the project. The researcher spent 3 years in Suffolk running(a) with 6 care internals owned by The Partnership In Care (TPIC) conference. The Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) 1 is responsible for this social care test-bed and will assess the impact of the project.Whats the problem?Statistics from the Labour Force mass show that Care Assistants and Home Carers report higher than average levels of stress lin k illness caused or do worse by the work they do. The PROLIX project aimed to develop systems that would help improve working lives of managers and stave at the homes. The project was not about work related stress, but the researchers recognised that in that respect were factors present that can be associated with cases of work related stress. Staff turnover was about average for a sector that has a planetaryly high turn over rate at around 25%. However, it was ill-temperedly high in one home after management problems, where analysis showed turnover in the previous two years of 57%.As versatile staff are replaced by rough staff, it increases the study demands on management. It is well established that lot who need help with social care fatality the same carer to care for them consistently especially those who need help with washing, dressing etc. Where homes have a high turn over rate or depone on temporary or confide staff they struggle to offer this consistency of care to the people who live at the home. Other issues place as part of the testing include low pay, high job demands, low staffing levels, IT issues and needs of residents as being key issues for staff. Job demands included1. The care needs of residents2. Requirements to record information on care given3. Required skills and knowledge in over a dozen mandatory areas of competence. Control issues included1. The care needs of residents2. Lack of control over how work is carried out3. Lack of control over when work is carried outWhat did they do about it?The initiative focused on improving the management of training and development in order to give staff the skills they need to do the job and satisfy the well-grounded requirements set by Care Quality Commission (CQC). The aim of the work was to help managers understand the issues set about by staff and for Care Assistants to get the training they need so that they could be more skilled and perform better, stay in the role longer and give residents the care that the are looking for. The familiar study involved all staff and managers at The Partnership in Care homes, and subsets of staff for particular areas of research. One area involved asking care staff to rate themselves on a weighing machine of 1-10 for a set of 17 areas of competency. These areas were based on the requirements set out by CQC and other areas set as important by the local training manager. Managers were then asked to rate each of their staff in the same competency areas. They had not seen the results from their staff when they did their assessment.This exercise helped staff s fetch up their own Areas For Improvement (AFI) and managers to range AFIs for staff. It also allowed comparison between staff and managers. This enabled the training manager to identify areas where members of staff did not touch sensation confident in their role or where managers did not feel confident that staff had the necessary skills. It also allowed the training manager to look for trends indoors teams, for example where there were differences between the ratings given by staff and a manager. It could also identify where people may be over-confident or where they needed more support. The general findings from this competency exercise were shared with staff and managers in a supported environment to help them identify issues and properly interpret data, where training was needed and where staff felt there could be an improvement in the services offered to residents.The detailed individual results were treated as confidential and discussed further in supervision. The final results of the project research were delivered to staff and managers at each home in a day-long session at the end of the project. This enabled the consultant to relieve the exercises and the results and spend time with staff and managers to give them support in receiving and delivering the results. It also enabled them to explain how these results would be fed into the d evelopment needs of the people who had taken part. There are some 600-800 someone training units to be delivered per home to skill all staff to a basic level, with a important proportion repeated annually as refreshers and for new unskilled staff. The organisation owns 6 homes, making this a huge and time consuming activity.The Partnership in Care group has a full time training manager who is responsible for arranging and delivering these training units. Kevin and Malcolm worked with the training manager to help develop a spreadsheet that would enable trainers and managers to see at a glance who had the training they needed, what training was outstanding and when refresher training was due. The training system has helped us see at a glance what training is outstanding and made sure that we can get people trained when they need it and nobody is missed out. Care home manager What else could have been done?They feel that one of the things they would do differently is to help the org anisation deliver to identify suitable people at interview stage. This would help The Partnership In Care group to identify staff development needs at an early stage and invest in those people who have the desire to forge a career or vocation in social care from the beginning of their employment. This would help keep them with the organisation. How can it prevent stress related ill health?It must be made clear that this exercise was not put in place with work related stress in mind. The objective was to help improve the organisation and delivery of training and development within the company. However, demands and control issues were identified as part of this study. By improving the levels of competence of staff and managers and in lot them think about the skills they need to be successful in their work and improve the lives of the people who rely upon them, the work has helped address some of these demand and control issues.