Being a social care worker has always been a busy job, especially when it comes to the coordinating and dispensing the comprehensive care required for patients with special needs. Accomplishing such a goal calls for sufficient to time to complete tasks, efficient use of the available healthcare resources, close attention to a patient’s healthcare and well-being, as well as comprehensive medical knowledge. However, social workers are currently in a place where they must make decisions over what tasks to accomplish, and which to pass over because they don’t have enough time to provide adequate care.
Recent studies have shown that some care workers being given as little as 5-10 minutes to give care to a patient before the next scheduled appointment. This puts both the patient and the caregiver in a tough situation. Do they prepare a meal for the patient, give them a bath or help them take their medicine? Social care workers require a minimum of thirty minutes to provide patients with quality care.
Increased time spent with patients will ensure that the support given is focused on their needs. Meaning that each patient receives adequate care in every visit. It’s important to keep in mind that the quality of patients’ lives depends on the regular social care visits. Workers should have ample time to perform all their services, and ensure that each patient receives care that meets all their individual needs.
The continuity of care is essential for the wellbeing of the patient. Continuity can be ensured by maintaining the same caregiver, which in time will help create a relationship between the patient and the caregiver. Continued care will help a worker understand all the patient’s needs. This means the time needed to provide adequate care will be reduced over time. The care worker will know the tasks which the patent needs help with, and so will not need to spend the start or a visit assessing the situation.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Workers should find out from their patients what they can easily do for themselves and what they need help with. Assuming that all elderly persons require the same kind of help is misleading and can potentially lead to unmet needs. For example, some patients can comfortably feed themselves, instead of a worker focusing on this, they can clean up the patient’s home as they eat or even talk to the patient about their day and cheer them up.
Social services are not limited to providing physical care. Some of these patients live a very lonely life and need someone to talk to. Otherwise they would suffer from neglect, social isolation, and even malnutrition because of depression. Social care workers should try as much as possible to spare some time to check on the patient’s social well-being. This could be by sharing a few jokes with them or simply give them a listening ear.
The Social Worker May Be The Sole Person A Patient Sees That Day
Visits of less than 10 minutes are not sufficient for the caregiver to perform all the necessary tasks. It is not enough time to cook, let alone give the patient a bath or clean their house. The patient is at times forced to do things that they normally wouldn’t do on their own. The risk in this is that patients end up injuring themselves through falls and then needing to be hospitalised.
Something must be done concerning the time spent by social care workers when making scheduled visits. As the quality of their service is critical to the wellbeing of their patients.