What are the duties and responsibilities of a care assistant?

Care can be an extremely rewarding field to work in. Unlike many jobs, it provides opportunities every day to help improve people’s quality of life. Care assistants work on the frontline of care delivery, assisting individuals to overcome everyday difficulties. Clients for care assistants can include the disabled, elderly, long-term ill and individuals with learning difficulties, so jobs can be extremely varied and every day is different.

If you join our team at Prestige Nursing & Care, you’ll be helping us in our continued efforts to make life better for our clients. You will experience the satisfaction of [...]

What the manifestos mean for the care sector

As the election looms it appears that we are no closer to having a clear indication of who will be in government come June. The electorate will have their say on the 7th of May, with the playing fields seemingly level between the two main parties and a host of former outsiders looking to make significant inroads.

Multiple competing views are represented and how social care policy care policy will look six months from now appears increasingly muddled. Whatever the outcome, the next parliament will be absolutely key to how the country balances cuts to spending with managing the needs of an [...]

Meeting the recruitment challenges in the caring profession

A career in health and social care is first choice for many job seekers who want to “make a difference” to other people’s lives, while having a satisfying and stimulating role in their local community.  In order to encourage this and keep a constant stream of aspirational new talent coming into the industry, we need to make sure that those joining have access to the training and development opportunities they need to keep them motivated and retain their skills long term within the profession.

The shocking but not surprising news from the Nursing and Midwifery Council that numbers of our “homegrown” [...]

Labour Pledge Could Mean Better Care For The Elderly

In a bid to raise the standard of care in residential homes across the country, a Labour government would hold the owners, management and directors of care homes responsible for how those people in their care are treated.

Mistreatment could result in custodial sentences for those responsible, according to Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary. Mr Burnham is reported to have pledged to introduce a new charge of “corporate neglect”, which could result in jail sentences or fines for the owners, managers and boards of private care homes. Many people outside the health and care industry might be surprised to learn [...]

A Housing Crisis For All Ages

The UK is suffering from a housing crisis affecting all ages as successive governments have continually failed to build enough homes for the UK’s growing population.

Young people are increasingly financially blocked from owning their own home without access to the Bank of Mum and Dad.  Hard-working families are handing over more than half their gross income to landlords.  But what perhaps receives less attention is that older people are living in properties that are unsuitable for their age or medical conditions. The National Housing Federation (NHF) has warned that more than 100,000 new homes are urgently needed for older [...]

A question of priorities

The government has recently pledged extensive measures to combat dementia and place the UK at the forefront of the global fight against the illness.

Amid reports that the international cost of the condition stands at £370bn – or 1% of the world’s total GDP, this is an important commitment and it is laudable that the coalition government is serious about tackling dementia. The additional £300 million funding for medical research which will take 2015’s total to £66 million, a far higher figure than 2010’s £26.6 million as the UK attempts to market itself as the world’s preeminent centre for dementia research. [...]

Protection needed for social care funding to avoid another crisis

NHS crises could increase without the protection of social care funding as thousands of vulnerable people risk missing out on vital services.

A recent article in Public Finance explains that local government leaders have called on Chancellor George Osborne to use next month’s Budget as a way to put social care funding on a ‘sustainable financial footing’. Specifically, the Chancellor is being urged to protect the funding in order for councils to better support the NHS. This winter has shown first-hand the problems that come with an underfunded social care system, which places added pressure on an already stretched NHS. [...]

Special measures and treatment of whistle-blowers highlight importance of accountability.

According to a recent Guardian article, investigations into poor patient care have been cited as appalling and inadequate, and have let down numerous patients – a worrying sign that lessons have not been learnt from recent hospital scandals.

According to a recent Guardian article, investigations into poor patient care have been cited as appalling and inadequate, and have let down numerous patients – a worrying sign that lessons have not been learnt from recent hospital scandals. Tens of thousands of people each year fail to report failings by the NHS as they have no faith in the system and believe that [...]

‘Hello, my name is…’ campaign highlights need for personalised, compassionate care.

Prestige Nursing + Care is a strong advocate of the importance of care employees working to build a personal relationship with those under their care, and believes that the recently launched “Hello, My name is…” campaign represents an excellent drive to enhance these relationships.

The campaign is the brainchild of NHS consultant Dr. Kate Granger, who when undergoing treatment for aggressive cancer three years ago felt that “the lack of introductions made me feel like a diseased body and not a real person”.   “Hello, my name is…” aims to spread the importance and positivity that the construction of [...]

A new era for health and social care or just wishful thinking?

Social care is a key battleground upon which the 2015 general election will be fought, emphasised yesterday by Ed Miliband’s pledge to reform the sector in order to improve its efficiency.

The system has been under intense pressure and scrutiny in recent years, and several failings in the past months such as bed blocking and severe cuts to council care budgets have been widely criticised by the press and in previous Prestige blogs. The Labour leader has given his vision of how social care organisation and delivery will look under a Labour government, which when implemented would mark a radical reform [...]