Have your say

Community Care’s new online discussion forum
‘Have your say’ offers the opportunity to air your
views on a current controversy.

All you have to do is click here
to make your point.

This week’s issues are access to services and the new guidance
from the government ‘Fair Access to Services’. Will it help deal
with the postcode lottery of services? What do you think? – Have
your say by clicking
here

Recent ‘Have your say’ contributions:

Last week’s issues were child protection and
public-private partnerships:

“With regards to the ‘have your say’ in this
week’s Community Care on child protection. I would have to
say that this very much depends on which local authority you work
for. I have recent experience of working for 2 L/A’s, one of which
was excellent and child protection was not threatened nor were
individuals scapegoated, on the contrary, staff were well
supervised and supported.

This cannot however be said of my most recent experience working
for a different L/A where staff shortages did jeopardise children’s
safety and staff were poorly supervised, if at all, and were
definitely held personally responsible when things went
pear-shaped.“

Anonymous

“I am both the marketing manager of a company
supplying a successful care management solution, and the carer of
my father who lives with us and has vascular dementia.

To me, the most pressing concern with using private sector
agencies is that the staff involved in many cases are highly
dedicated – even to the point of ‘owning’ problems with my father.
However, compared to the public sector, in my experience, they are
not paid for or allocated travel time or costs, they have to have
training in their own time, and they are paid probably less than
shelf-stackers in our local supermarket.

Funding for care usually comes from two sources: government, and
contributions from the client. Surely then the answer is to use
these funds in the most cost effective way, whether from private or
public resources.

However, there has to be a level playing field, and that can
only come about by better contracted working conditions for staff
of private as well as public sector organisations.

I have written a much more detailed paper on this, if you would
like to see its contents, but it is more marketing biased. However,
the question of good quality care – from whatever source – is
closest to my heart.“

Geoff Morris