Residential care home workforce development: the rhetoric and reality of meeting older residents’ care needs.

Abstract

This study reports on different approaches to enhancing health and social care for older people in UK residential homes through up-skilling care home staff. It provides evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of such approaches, discusses barriers and facilitators, and identifies challenges for the future. This research contributes to current debates concerning provision of a ‘home for life’, the funding of long-term care, better quality of life for older people with high support needs, integrated health and social care working, and inter-professional boundaries. Three approaches to workforce development involving the up-skilling of care home staff are explored in depth. Results are presented from the perspectives of local and national stakeholders, care home staff, and residents and relatives. The findings will be of relevance to: policy-makers, regulators, educators, residential home employers and staff, commissioners, community health and social care professionals, care home residents and their relatives, and older people and their representative organisations. The report covers: • new approaches to providing enhanced care in residential care homes; • enhanced activities undertaken by care staff and sources of learning; • development of a ‘new role’ carer professional workforce; • ways of working in practice; • residents’ and relatives’ experiences; • implications for the future of residential care.

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