Care overview Quality of life
There is no denying that care is an incredibly difficult career and many workers are in the profession because they are passionate about caring for people and want to give them a good quality of life in their twilight years. Yet, the measures that were put in place to help protect care home residents from the transmission of COVID-19 (e.g., visitor restrictions, isolation, shielding, and increased hygiene protocols) came at a cost, with 28 per cent of survey respondents believing that quality of life for care home residents declined substantially. Forum participants said that residents were not given the experiences they needed to ‘live life’. Improving quality of life for residents can be linked to an improved working environment for staff. As you are aware, working in a care home can have a psychological impact. Carers are helping to make the elderly comfortable, but end of life care is part of the job. Rather than just focusing on the status quo of a resident, countries such as Germany have encouraged a different and more positive approach to care. Instead of looking at how that individual can survive the next couple of months, it is about focusing on improving the existing skills they already have to make their life more meaningful. Another measure can be linked to the structure and funding of the care system. While there are challenges with every system, there are lessons to be learnt from countries that are more progressive in their approach. Norway, for example, consistently takes the top spot
recruitment. At a micro level, the focus should be on bringing in both time and cost efficiencies through sustainability, communication, digitalisation, and networking, to help carers carry out their responsibilities. For example, the centralisation of laundry is one trend that is emerging as it reduces labour intensity and cost.
for its long-term care system as well as its treatment of elderly citizens, with the common consensus that it is the best place to ‘grow old’. Its initiatives include raising expectations for how much patients can do with their own health through ‘re- ablement’. This includes rehab and more support in the home, asking residents about what is important to them - whether it be a scotch at 5pm or not leaving their room without makeup - and bringing animals into the care home for residents to interact with. There are endless examples. Finally, quality of life for residents can be improved by bringing in more clinically skilled carers into the industry as well as freeing up the space for current carers to be able to spend more time attending to residents. For the latter, this could be investing in technology that aids the secondary processes within the care home, such as housekeeping and laundry. Laundry, for example, is a task that is done multiple times per day and has a large role to play when it comes to hygiene, as thoroughly washing residents clothes, bedding, and towels helps prevent the risk of infection. There are some commercial machines available on the market to ease this process thanks to innovative software and hardware. This includes technology where data is stored automatically so information does not need to be documented by hand.
Future expectations
Broadly speaking, meaningful change in the care industry needs to happen at a government level as the current setup is unsustainable, especially given that the population is ageing. This needs to come from active lobbying from leaders within the industry to fuel change, increased funding, and more efforts to drive
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Going forwards it is expected that there will be fewer care home operators in the market – larger businesses are buying smaller care homes as they have the financial viability to adapt in a crisis. In tandem, there will be more alternative care models such as ambient assisted living. This involves the use of technology to help the elderly live independently e.g., smart devices, health monitoring, robots etc. The next generation of older people will be an entirely different target group to what we are experiencing now; they will need internet access and have higher expectations for personalisation – and the industry must be open to change its focus to different kinds of care for the system to be truly strengthened.
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Ralph Skornia
Ralph Skornia is the customer segment manager (care) at Miele Professional. Care is one of the most important target sectors for the commercial dishwashing and laundry technology manufacturer, and Ralph’s role has been created to help understand the needs and demands of the international market. To help identity the challenges today’s care professionals are experiencing, Ralph is regularly on the road visiting care homes across Europe. His input is then used to establish what Miele can do to help solve these problems and to ease the lives of its customers through the development of new products and services.
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com April 2023
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