In his regular blog for Caerphilly Observer South Wales East AM Lindsay Whittle gives his take on recent news.
Social Care
This week in the Assembly, I tabled an amendment to the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care Bill which will mean that social care workers are given enough time to care for their clients.
I was pleased that the Labour Welsh Government, which had initially resisted calls, decided to support an amendment that will ensure that ensure service providers ensure a minimum time period of 30 minutes for visitors.
Visits currently can be as short as 10 minutes, leaving care workers to decide which tasks to prioritise. This means that workers often have to take difficult decisions between helping someone wash or take medication or prepare a meal for them.
This move is an important step forward and will be welcomed by both those who receive social care and their relatives as well as by care workers.
During First Minister’s Questions, I also raised the issue of tackling the differences in employment between various groups and parts of society.
Life can be particularly difficult for those men and women who are unemployed or have been made redundant recently. It is important that as part of equality plans that older people have equal access to job opportunities.
Senghenydd
I will be attending the memorial dinner on Friday which is held annually to mark the pit disaster.
It will be raising funds to help former students of St Cenydd Comprehensive in their future lives once they leave school.
Funds in the past have been used to help a disabled ex-pupil to take driving lessons so he can be more mobile, a woman who had set up her own business but needed help with child care and to assist another former student in university studies.
Lindsay makes a valid point here, care workers simply are not allowed enough time to do their job. A ten minute visit, though better than nothing, is insufficient for the worker to perform the task(s) that they are called upon to perform, let alone identify a worsening of patient condition or forge a proper, trusting relationship with them.
As well as the benefit of a more flexible timetable for carer visits for the person being cared for this will also cut the stress on the workers themselves who are really being run ragged as they try to race through their allotted calls.
This situation is shocking. There are many measures of a society and caring for its old and it’s sick is one of them.