Care centre dispute

[Brian]

I just LOVED Ironwith's remark that 'What Simon Boker-Ingram was speaking about doing sounded like a great improvement for the clients'.

[tirvaluk]

I can see all the care centres closing down and the clients being sent home to their families, that would solve the financial problem. Would they be happy then?

[paulb]

that would cost them even more. on the person in charge the gagging order stops those in the know speaking out. whatever they term the changes they are CUTS and this will be the first of many.

[Candle]

Who are people such as Mr. B.I. answerable to? Why are we constantly subjected to decisions made about our local health and social services with so little consultation?

[Ian_H]

Care centres in Shetland are run by the SIC with decisions affecting them ultimately taken by Councillors.

 

The hospital and health centres throughout Shetland are run by NHS Shetland with decisions taken by the NHS Shetland Board.

[tirvaluk]

And now they are having to take in agency care workers from South, as they have nobody left to fill the shifts.S.B.I.  was on the radio tonight saying thay had to meet the financial envelope what B.S.

[Colin]

http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/9584-sic-forced-to-import-staff-for-care-homes

 

"This week social work director Simon Bokor Ingram said consulting would slow down recruitment at a time the service urgently needed extra staff."

 

Could be way off the mark here as I do not have all the facts but, isn't this kind of statement symptomatic of the underlying problem?

 

I would have thought that such a high paid individual would have engaged in a proper consultation BEFORE wielding the axe...

 

I was also a little bemused to hear that agency workers had been employed without prior agreement from councillors.

 

Seems to me that some of the SIC management still think that they are entitled to make a mess of things without fear of sanction and, then proceed to spend extra cash to rectify the problems they have caused.

 

I would love to see some of these people try to make a good of it in the private sector.  Might teach them a few lessons.

[MuckleJoannie]

For once the SIC acted decisively and they got it wrong.

[sunshine2]

Seems to be yet more evidence of decisions being made based on poor knowledge with little attempt to understand the issues. Arrogance, ignorance and incompetence is a dangerous combination. Why are these people not accountable?

[JustMe]

If extra short term staff were needed now to ensure proper care of the clients (or whatever the correct term for people in care homes and the like is) then frankly Bokor Ingram did the right thing.  Providing the required level of service needed to come first and talking to the unions about the way forward comes second.  As for prior agreement from councillors would anyone like to guess how long it would have taken to get that and how many clients would suffer poor care as a result.

 

That said the longer term staffing needs to be discussed with the councillors and the unions and the whole of the SIC needs to learn that hasty cuts to the workforce to save money are not always best in the medium to long term.

[Ghostrider]

....the whole of the SIC needs to learn that hasty cuts to the workforce to save money are not always best in the medium to long term.

 

I would suspect that they (mostly) already know that, but doing so is all too often for them the politically expedient thing to do.

 

What better than giving the nod to cuts that appear to make a difference where its needed to be seen to make a difference at that time for their benefit, then sneak most of whats been cut back in after a few months through the back door. Its the formula that's been used (mostly by "officials") for years to save themselves actually having to sit down and address an issue and deliver a viable long term solution.

[Windwalker]

The priority has to be ensuring sufficient cover for those who need it. But you have to ask who is meant to be managing this service, and are they capable of doing so. How has it been allowed to get into this position.

 

Surely it's time that someone starts kicking backsides and holding those responsible for such poor management of essential services.

 

Unfortunately time has shown that those in high paid posts seem to be Teflon coated and whether it's council or health board, they continue to pick up thier large salaries while providing mediocre service at the expense of the end user or rate payer.

 

Being a "manager" is easy when it's not your own money your playing with and when enough mistakes are made you can walk away with a huge financial package, all on us the tax payer. Then you can become a councillor and start all over again.

[jammydodger]

The councillors agreed some time ago that there would be 3 priorities when looking at council cuts,  Education, Social Care and Transport, in that order.  This was made council policy.

 

Since then staff in all 3 services have been cut to the bone to the point where they can barely run.  In education we have secondary teachers spending a good chunk of their working day running between schools.  This travel time is taken off their classroom contact time so reducing the time they spend teaching pupils. In social care we have carers being asked to do the laundry and clean the care centres on top of looking after their clients.  Lack of staff have meant that existing staff have been asked to do extra shifts and are being pushed to the limits. Workers who were given redundancy packages have been asked to come back.  In transport ferries have been unable to run to timetable due to staff shortages.  Again. workers who left and were given redundancy packages have returned to their jobs.  With the bus contracts Gary Robinson stated that they had managed to save almost a million pounds - is that still the case considering that the school bus runs that had been axed have had to be re-instated because the roads have been deemed unsafe for bairns to walk on?

 

It is my belief that much of the savings are paper savings.  Many of us went to the roadshow where we were given a laptop and told to save £2m.  Many of us achieved that and more because it's easy to do it on paper.  The hard bit is turning it into real savings.

 

I wonder if this is the reason why James Gray, the man who said he had come to save Shetland is leaving?

 

I think that the SIC needs a major overhaul of how it is administrated, this is where the real savings could be made not by getting rid of front-line staff.  We may complain about the number of consultants the SIC employ but I think if Councillors would agree to bring someone in that can look at the administration and running of the SIC and make significant savings it would be money well spent.

 

I said right at the beginning when they started cutting staff in the care centres that the SIC would be relying on the good will of staff to run the service.  Looks like the good will maybe just ran out.

[Colin]

Can't remember just where and when I said it but, when the original cuts were made, I pointed out that relatively low paid 'front-line' staff were being cut to protect the relatively high paid 'seat polishers' who administer them. 

The 'bleeding obvious' result of this is that, despite the plans(?) management have, there are no longer enough 'good hands' left to do the work.

I would guess that agency staff have been brought in because the original employees (if they were ever asked) have told them to 'get stuffed' as they have either retired or have found alternative employment.

Importing agency staff from 'down south' is an act of desperation as I am sure that there are local people who could fill the gap if they thought that they would be treated with the proper respect that they deserve.

[paulb]

i wonder if they were so short of staff why the managers did not step in  to fill the empty spots in the rota. as you know social and health board are meant to work as one. is  this working well they do have an extra tier of management. simply uniting both bodies under one management system seems to complicated,  they cut posts that were needed. they are not offering permanent contracts. who would risk giving up a secure job for an insecure one. long term planning simply shows they need more not less carers. its not complicated more older folks need care with a reduced work force something was going to fail. the bigger concern is how many folks are not getting the care support they need.