What Would You Do?
WWYD
What Would You Do??
You are visiting a care home at lunch you see a staff member is helping several residents eat. To save time, they start spooning food quickly into one resident’s mouth without waiting for them to chew or swallow. The resident looks distressed but doesn’t speak up.
• Do you intervene in the moment?
• Do you report it afterwards?
• Or do you let it go, thinking the staff are just busy?
Interesting question.
I think 'just letting it go' shouldn't be an option.
In principle, you should intervene in the moment: the resident is distressed in the moment, and the potential danger of choking, etc, is at that time. So do you talk to the staff member, or should you decide to try and find a manager [I think preferably the person in overall charge of the care home] and have a word with her/him?
I think I would try to decide if the resident was in any danger beyond 'being distressed', and if it looked as if the answer to that was 'no', then I'd try to raise it with a manager. We don't actually know, from what has been described, if the staff member realises that what he/she is doing isn't acceptable: is it a training issue? Does all of the 'blame' rest with that individual staff member, or are there deficiencies more widely?
I think that if it is possible, you should try to be present at some future meals to see if such behaviour occurs again - if it does, then in the end you should perhaps consider raising it with the CQC.
This is - as I'm confident Liz knows - 'tricky'. And perhaps even trickier, if the resident is your own relative or friend.
It is also not something I've really considered before, and it is rather different from what I usually bang on about [as people who have looked at my posts will already know] - so what I've written is very much my immediate thoughts and rather off-the-cuff. And, I should point out, incomplete (for example, I haven't explained why it is 'trickier' if the resident is your own relative or friend, although I feel reasonably confident that my assertion is true).
I would be interested to read other responses to Liz's question.
I think everything is so wrong with care home this day and my self working in care for over 13 years have seen some horrible things from staff members and also home care managers caring for some one young or old it a massive happy privilege and should be a honor to work alongside side but when you she abuse taken place and it is your word against care work and I went through all the right steps and was not taken seriously