Care Workforce Wellbeing: Engagement Report 2023
The results of the RBK wellbeing survey showed an appetite for a frontline staff forum / virtual networking site, so that care workers could share experiences and information to improve their wellbeing in the workplace. This also included requests for an escalation pathway for concerns or complaints around equality and diversity issues in the workplace.
When RBK asked who care workers felt would be best placed to host this work, the first choice for respondents was RBK. However, as RBK commissions most of the social care in the borough, it was deemed inappropriate for them to carry out this work. The second choice for both activities was Healthwatch Kingston upon Thames (Healthwatch Kingston) which indicated an awareness of Healthwatch by members of the care workforce.
RBK contracted Healthwatch Kingston to provide a retrospective engagement exercise with care workers about their wellbeing in the workplace during 2021-22 and to report anonymised findings and learning from this engagement to RBK.
Recommendations for commissioners:
1. Healthwatch Kingston recommends RBK (The Council) develop a care worker wellbeing checklist for use during RBK quality assurance visits to care homes to help consistently monitor workforce satisfaction and gather insights.
2. Healthwatch Kingston recommends RBK quality assurance visits assess the quality of staff room environments and the information provided to care workers within, to ensure it is current and includes clear guidance about engagement opportunities.
Recommendations for commissioners and care providers:
3. Healthwatch Kingston recommends commissioners, providers, and care workers co-design a wellbeing in the workplace toolkit that builds upon findings from this report.
4. Healthwatch Kingston recommends commissioners and providers work collaboratively to run regular ‘you said, we did’ care workforce surveys to help facilitate continuous service improvement.
5. Healthwatch Kingston recommends that provision of care workforce counselling and support is included in future service specifications and that providers report uptake by their staff of this offer in routine contract monitoring and / or during RBK quality assurance visits to care homes.
6. Healthwatch Kingston recommends commissioners and providers work collaboratively to introduce workforce wellbeing training for care provision managers.
Recommendations for care providers:
7. Healthwatch Kingston recommends care providers communicate how their staff can access mental health support in their workplace, and ensure relevant care worker wellbeing policies and procedures, such as safeguarding, whistleblowing, code of conduct, and confidentiality are regularly reviewed and accessible.
8. Healthwatch Kingston recommends care providers explore ways to address mental health stigma, whether real or perceived, and how to establish safe spaces for open conversations about mental health issues within the care workplace.
9. Healthwatch Kingston recommends that care providers introduce ‘end of life care’ support and training for their care workforce. This should consider the need for mental health support for care workforce experiencing delayed post-Covid bereavement.
10. Healthwatch Kingston recommends that care providers allow reasonable time for bereavement of care staff if the person they were caring for dies on their work shift.
11. Healthwatch Kingston recommends that care providers explore how to provide care workers with continuity of care opportunities to avoid disruption to staff motivation.
12. Healthwatch Kingston recommends that care providers review care expectations of their workforce. Also review benefit and expense arrangements along with realistic travel time between clients to ensure they are as supportive as possible and reflect cost-of-living pressures.
Recommendations for non-care workforce professionals:
13. Healthwatch Kingston recommends non-care workforce professionals be mindful of the pressures that care workers may be under and approach communication sensitively when contacting care workers for information.
Conclusion
The research for this report was undertaken from August 2022 to March 2023, and builds on a wellbeing survey for care workers undertaken by RBK in late 2021. The views of 102 care workers were gathered by HWK through a survey, meetings and events approximately two thirds worked in care homes, and one third in home care.
Although the majority valued their work, gained satisfaction from it and felt that both their physical and mental health were taken seriously by their employer, there were also many stressors, such as being short staffed and feeling bereaved when a patient died. Carers generally felt respected, but over one third had witnessed disrespect and/or discrimination and a fifth did not feel confident in reporting it, or felt that clients who were disrespectful were unwell and not fully aware of their own behaviour.
One third had felt that the workload had become unmanageable in the previous year and it should be noted that 48% had other (unpaid) caring responsibilities as well. They felt stressed by their low pay, exacerbated by the increase in the cost of living, but there was a feeling that ‘nothing will change’, given the well-recognised issues of underfunding in the care system. Being part of a strong team was beneficial, but perhaps more thought needs to be given to how this is created in domiciliary care.
