Congratulations to service provider Care UK for posting a £1.6m rise in profits to £21m on revenues up from £316m to £410. They must be doing something right.
It looked so different in January when Care UK lost a £2.4m contract with Hertfordshire Council in a move that prompted the authority's adult services director, Sarah Pickup, to say that she would not entertain using the provider for elderly care for perhaps 20 years.
In April, Care UK was the subject of an investigation into domiciliary care for BBC One's Panorama, which pointed out that the plc's operations in Hertfordshire had attracted nearly 2,000 complaints.
In neighbouring Harrow too, Care UK had a £2m a year contract. As in Hertfordshire, complaints were legion. On two visits last year, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, as it was, listed more than 20 failings on each occasion. In March 2008, it gave the service a zero-star rating.
So, well done, Care UK. It amazes me how you have achieved such sparkling results as our economy lurches from stagnation to dip.
I can't even begin to express how much I loathe Care UK. I wish I could go into lots of details that I personally know about but it would be easy to know where I worked if I did so but they have been worse than awful in my direct, professional experience and I have lots of stories to tell of them but I have confidence that they will unravel. The mistakes are being picked up by commissioners.
I loathe Care UK too. I have no problem describing why: because of the sub-standard clinical care - aka neglect - inflicted on my relative. Within 10 days of arrival in a Care UK care home, she was in an ambulance on the way to critical care in hospital. My relative never recovered. My conclusion? Their management supervision was miserably lacking, and questions have to be asked about whether the staff are suitably qualified and equipped to do the job.
But the worst of all? I think Care UK was totally unaware of the disastrous state of this one particular care home. That is sad. That is dangerous. But they are now fully aware of the failings of that care home, its local management, its regional management. It has taken two years to lift that care home from the pits to the first rung on the ladder.
So, their profits may be up - but at the expense of the very people they are supposed to care for. I certainly would not say "well done" - far from it. Vulnerable, elderly people with dementia only get one chance to profit from care, and only get one chance to recover from neglect, if they're lucky. Unlike Care UK who can be given chance after chance.
Care UK just don't care. I despise their operation.
i was going to work for Care UK. I was interviewed last September in a coffee shop and by Christmas was still not working. Why? Well.....first the interviewer - perfectly ok person - went off sick within days of my interview taking my completed CRB forms with her with all relevant information completed - proof of ID etc which I brought to the interview.
Some three weeks - maybe more - I was then contacted by HR to say I needed to do another way (yet more delays). So....I drove down to Reading from Winchester to do this - took up all morning and petrol came out of my wallet. Following this I did two online occupational health declarations, neither of which got through to them and I was later told "oh we have been having problems with these" - some technical hitch.
I then attempted to do two training days which were necessary for my role as triage nurse both in mid October. Prior to this (and this was well known to the company) I had had a serious head injury. I could not do the second day as it was a 140-mile round trip and seven hours of intensive teaching.
I have recently seen a neurologist who has confirmed that symptoms at that time were entirely due to the head injury. So far so good. In January I was asked to do two days but this was during the time of heavy snow when the police were advising people not to go out because of weather hazards.
Then, having moved to be closer to Luton and declined other jobs, out of the blue I was sent a withdrawal of offer letter based on the training days not having been done and that they hadn't received the occupational health check.
The person who wrote the letter from HR claims she wrote it before she received my explanatory email. As I can call up all my deleted mails I can prove this is just not true. I insisted they pay me something but all I got was two weeks' salary.
I have now been back to them and said legally they should pay me a month and I will take legal action against them for what is really wrongful dismissal. I intend to email their CEO tomorrow.
In all my 30 years of nursing, I have never come across such an inefficient uncaring company which, contrary to what its staff handbook says, shows no respect for their employees.