Fife Council’s electronic system for scheduling home care visits has come under fire from its own staff.
A carer in the East Neuk, who asked not to be named, said elderly people have been missing out on continuity of care since the system was introduced.
Staff are being made to travel long distances because they are being brought in from all over Fife, said the carer, and clients often have to cope with changes to their routine.
She said, “Before the system was brought in, if you were off ill you would phone a colleague and ask them if they could possibly look after Mr Smith.
“If that was okay, the client was at least covered. Now we’re not allowed to do that because it goes through the electronic system.
“Clients are not getting consistency. If their carer’s off sick, they get one lady two days a week and a private sector carer three days a week. The following week it’s someone else.
“Carers are travelling all over the place and the council is paying a petrol allowance. It must be mounting up to thousands.”
She added, “It’s terrible for clients, because we have become part of the family for these old people. They haven’t got a clue who is coming to them. If you go to someone you haven’t been to before it’s difficult both for you and the client.
“They are getting the raw end of the deal and nothing seems to be getting done about it.”Concern over working hoursThis week, The Courier highlighted carers’ concerns over working hours.
It was claimed carers are working less than their contracted hours while shifts are being given to the private sector.
Head of older people’s services Rona Laing said the electronic system has been hugely successful.
Social work service manager Louise Bell said, “We have 1200 home care workers who help us deliver 22,000 hours of home care to people in Fife.
“This involves a huge amount of co-ordination and to assist in this we use an electronic system called Webroster which assists managers in deploying home care resources in the most effective way.
“The system helps us see at a glance which staff are available, at which times in specific areas, helping us maximise the use of home carers’ time.
“There will always be times where some carers may not be working their full contracted hours and this can be for a number of reasons, such as their availability to work not matching the specific hours where home care is needed or the service user requiring a short stay in hospital or the distance between service users being too great for one member of staff to cover.
“While we strive as far as possible to ensure consistency of care for service users, our first and foremost concern is that they receive the care they need as and when it is required.
“A recent survey (in October) showed that 93% of service users were satisfied with the home care service we provided.”