Exercise: Involving and Engaging

Promoting a Positive Work Culture - Getting Started

The following story was told by a care assistant working within an NHS care setting.

“Lunchtime comes at 12 o’clock. They’re brought from their rooms to the dining table. They sit at the dining table. You’ve got 5 staff on. They start the drugs at lunchtime. The trained members of staff do the drug trolley. You’ve got to have a trained member of staff that puts out the food now, I don’t know why. But that leaves 3 staff to serve the food in the dining room and to take the food to people who are in their bed. If you’ve got, say half a dozen feeders, which maybe you have, how do they get fed? To feed somebody you should spend time giving them food. Food or mealtimes at times can be a traumatic experience for people.

When I was brought up, mealtimes were always a pleasurable time, to eat and converse, not to be rushed. Here, we rush it and we rush it and we rush it. I’m not saying it happens all the time but it does happen.

I don’t know how long it takes a normal person to eat a two or three course meal. But I would think it would take somebody who’s old and frail longer. But I think we don’t have the staff to do it. I don’t think they get fed well. It makes me feel shite, it’s horrible. Basically, I like the job but I would not miss the environment.

The patients I think they don’t get enough. I don’t think we can feed somebody in 10 minutes and hope that they’re fed. It ends up they don’t get enough to eat. That could be a planning and preparation project. For example, we could have the feeders fed half an hour earlier or later; or organise it so that you don’t have to feed the feeders at the same time. It could be looked at on a planning level. I don’t think it’s a pleasurable experience, the feeding time for the patients in here.”

Questions

• Team working
• Person-centred care
• Culture
• Values
• Language