The Randstad Care Blog

Calling all Qualified Nurses! Cambridge Office Open Day: 24th February

 


Randstad Care, the UK’s leading Nursing Care specialist, are a preferred supplier of Nursing specialists to local authorities, private and voluntary organisations and NHS Trusts. This is your exclusive chance to discover more about the fantastic opportunities available to you – including a variety of Nursing, Management and Carer positions.

Date: Thursday 24th February

Time: from 12pm onwards

Place: Randstad Care, The Tram Shed, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1BG

For more information on our open day, or for information on how Randstad Care can help you make your next career move, please contact Justin Aves in Cambridge:

01223 557 688

justin.aves@randstadcare.co.uk
www.randstadcare.co.uk
www.facebook.com/randstadcare

Come and meet Randstad Care at Nursing in Practice event, Glasgow!

 

Randstad Care attending the
Nursing in Practice event, Glasgow

1st March 2011 - Stand 10, The SECC, Glasgow

Randstad Care are delighted to confirm our partnership with the Nursing in Practice event in Glasgow – the biggest primary care nursing event held in Scotland for FREE (including FREE lunch and FREE parking).

Held at the SECC on 1st March, this event is dedicated exclusively to all primary care nurses working within Scotland.

As the UK’s leading Health & Social Care recruitment provider, not only do we want to help you find your ideal job, but also assist you in continuing your professional development. That is why we have partnered with Nursing in Practice Glasgow, offering you the support you require and so much more.

Discussions will be held on best practice and a wide range of current issues, including:

• Asthma
• Nutrition
• Drug and alcohol misuse
• Mental health and suicide
• Sexual health and youth
• Women’s health
• Diabetes

Benefits of attending:

• Keep yourself informed with the latest clinical and public health developments and improve your practice with this new information
• Network with other primary care nurses and suppliers to stay up-to-date with what is happening outside of your practice
• Obtain more hours towards your PREP and add to your CPD with the RCN accredited seminar programme
• Get involved, get your voice heard and make a difference
• Receive a FREE lunch and network around our varied exhibition

 

To find out more information please click here

To register for the FREE event, please click here

Or alternatively to register or for group bookings, please call Becky on 0207 214 0598

Click here to search for Nursing vacancies

Randstad Care attending Nurses Career Fair at University of Glamorgan on Tues 23rd November!

 

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Randstad Care are attending the Nurses Careers Fair at the University of Glamorgan on Tuesday 23rd November!

The Faculty of Health, Sport and Science at the University is holding a Careers Fair for final year students across the following areas of nursing, who are due to qualify in March and September 2011:

• Adult
• Children
• Mental Health
• Learning Disabilities

Come and join us on the day and see how
Randstad Care can help you after you graduate next year!

Tuesday 23rd November, between 9:30 - 13:00

Aneurin Bevan building
Glyntaff Campus
University of Glamorgan
Pontypridd
Mid Glamorgan
CF37 4BD

Click here for a map

Quality nursing staff are a precious resource, which is why, at Randstad Care, we do everything we can to ensure our candidates are treated with the utmost care and our clients receive only the finest personnel.

Randstad Care are CQC registered and have Nurse qualified consultants in situ to interview candidates and assess clinical knowledge.

Click here to search for Nursing jobs

We're working in partnership with Liaise Loddon!

 

Randstad Care are pleased to announce that we're working in partnership with Liaise Loddon, assisting in the recruitment of support workers, both temporary and permanent.

Liaise Loddon was established in 1995 by Marion Cornick and now has a range of small residential homes that provide lifelong placements throughout Hampshire in a variety of rural and suburban settings.
 
Liaise Loddon excels in the delivery of unique personalised community-based residential services to individuals with severe learning disabilities and complex restrictive and challenging behaviours usually associated with autism, who will always require intensive support to achieve their maximum potential for life.
 
This is realised through a combination of proactive approaches, applied behaviour analysis, development of life skills and the support of a highly skilled and motivated staff team.
 
All the individuals have limited communications skills and are often non-verbal and hence, are unable to communicate clearly their needs and desires. We ensure that the development of communication skills is inherent in all of the daily activities through the integral use of objects-of-reference, Makaton, PIC symbols and photographs.

For more information on the temporary and permanent vacancies available, please contact Richard Mitchell in our Southampton office:

e. richard.mitchell@randstadcare.co.uk 
t. 02380 381 901

Come join us! Southend Open Day - 8th October 2010

following the coldest august in 17 years...   ...you can find 100s of the hottest jobs at Randstad Care. location: Randstad Care Suite 20, 3rd Floor, Thamesgate House, 33-41 Victoria Avenue Southend on Sea SS2 6BX

Join us for refreshments and a refreshing outlook to your career. Our experienced Recruitment Consultants not only have a detailed understanding of the current market and areas of growth but also of your increasing worth in the industry today.

We will be on hand to discuss your next step up the career ladder and give personalised advice on your CV and how to secure your ideal role.

We can offer you exclusive access to range of positions within the Essex area, including:

• Qualified Social Workers (of all levels) within Children, Families and Adults
• Team Managers & Operational Managers
• Care Workers / Homeworkers / Residential Support Workers / Project Workers
• Deputy Managers & Home Managers
  

And with Randstad Care, you’ll receive a wealth of benefits,
just a few of which include:

• More of the best opportunities, nationwide, with the clients you most want to work with
• Excellent rates of pay
• 23 offices across the UK
• Free, ongoing, professional in-house training courses for all of our temporary workers
• Committed specialist consultants who take the time to get to know you and your requirements to provide the best career advice

To RSVP and secure your place, please contact Kirsty Colliard or Malaika Ellis

0207 932 6200

We look forward to seeing you there. But hurry, as spaces are limited!

Have you heard of the new Adult Social Care Outcome Tool: ASCOT?

The Guardian has published a report on a new measure that will awaken much debate on Adult Social Care as we know it – the Adult Social Care Outcome Tool (ASCOT).

The quality or amount of social care provided to Adults is intended to become more measurable, in an effort to prove its worth as well as quantify the return of government investment in it.

Determining the full effect of a social care service on an individual’s quality of life is a controversial issue with which the sector as a whole has struggled so far.

“Personal budgets have begun to expose the sector’s weakness. Given choice and control, individual users have delivered often conclusive verdicts on services that commissioners had never thought to question. But relying on the aggregate effect of hundreds of thousands of personal decisions cannot be the best way to plan the future provision of care and support for older and disabled people” reports David Brindle, Public Services Editor at The Guardian.

The ASCOT intends to change this. Developed by the Personal Social Services Research Unit, the tool measures a Service User’s quality of life by eight factors, which are then weighted in-line with their importance:

• Control over daily life
• Personal cleanliness and comfort
• Food and nutrition
• Safety
• Social participation and involvement
• Occupation
• Accommodation cleanliness and comfort
• Dignity

Click here for an overview and guide to the first version of the tool, Download Main-guidanceASCOT as published on the PSSRU website.

With the Office of National Statistics reporting an average annual fall of 2.1% between 1996 and 2005 in the productivity in Adult Social Care, and apparently nothing during this period to demonstrate the complexity of needs across the sector, the theoretical benefits of the ASCOT are clear.

But undoubtedly, a few key questions remain: Is a scoring system really the best way to manage a profession in which ‘care’ is an operative word? Might rethinking issues like Personal Budgets simply on the grounds that they may not be cost-effective actually be detrimental to a Service User’s quality of life?

Can we even define social care’s value in terms of government investment? Or perhaps more importantly, with ‘inevitably painful’ cuts in public spending ahead of us, can we afford not to?

Are you using this tool yet? Tell us what you think.

Is the new review of child protection and social work in England going to prompt major job changes?

Further to the revelations made in our last post regarding the level of child care, it seems that the new government are ready to make changes, by announcing that they have ordered an independent review of child protection and social work in England.

The review has been prompted by several high-profile abuse cases, including the death of Baby Peter in 2007. Many in the industry welcome the move and feel it is well overdue.
Professor Eileen Munro, from the London School of Economics, will examine ways of cutting bureaucracy to give social workers more time with children. She will also consider ways of improving links between social workers and other agencies like the police.

The government, headed by Children's Minister Tim Loughton, says it wants "to fundamentally review the system" by asking the question, "What helps or hinders professionals from making the best judgements and interventions they can to protect a vulnerable child?"

Ministers want the review to examine the most successful systems of child protection in place in other countries. Professor Munro will also evaluate the success of a pilot in the London borough of Hackney which has tried to slash bureaucracy for social workers.Over the last few years, Hackney has abandoned the traditional management structure and instead, staff now work in teams, handling cases together. An administrator does the paperwork for each team, giving social workers more time to spend with vulnerable children. Early indications are that the moves have had a positive effect.

Marion Davies, president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, welcomed the review and said she hoped new measures might help rebuild people's confidence in social workers and the confidence of social workers themselves, as too much regulation can undermine social workers.

What will the lasting implications be for the social worker jobs marketplace? Will the segmentation of the jobs, as Hackney have trialled, make it easier to recruit the right skills into the industry?

Are you seeing changes at a local level yet?

Does a programme like Channel 4's Dispatches help the children who need intervention?

In the wake of the tragic death of Baby P and other high-profile cases of child abuse and murder, Channel 4's Dispatches programmeinvestigated allegations that child protection procedures and practices continue to be inadequate.
In the programme  - Undercover Social Worker - A Dispatches reporter worked undercover in a UK social services department for three months, discovering what child protection services are actually like on the ground.

The programme  raised questions about what is actually being done to protect some of Britain's most vulnerable children. As part of the programme, several social workers were interviewed on film.They talked about the threats, both physical and verbal, that they experience working within child protection, and the low morale within child protection, which ultimately impacts on the care they're giving to children
 
Does a programme like Dispatches help the children who need intervention?

On the one hand raising awareness of poor practice could ensure it is improved. On the other negative publicity will mean less social workers wanting to work for the council increasing workload for already stretched staff.

What are your thoughts?

Social worker jobs now being sourced from the USA to deal with staff shortages

A County Council in West Sussex, has decided to take the step of going across to the USA to try and recruit social workers. They are having real problems with 57 of the council’s 264 child social worker jobs currently vacant. Having tried recruitment organisations in the UK, they have been forced to look further afield, because of the shortage of good candidates in the UK.
The West Sussex County Council bosses trekked over the Atlantic to carry out interviews for its adult social care department. The recruitment drive, which cost £4,500 a worker, comes a year after the council was classified “inadequate” in safeguarding youngsters which forced the Government to issue an intervention notice. This saw external consultants appointed to oversee improvements in the council’s services to children.

Liberal Democrat councillor Colin Wilsdon said he felt prospective carers were being driven away by the “media-hysteria” surrounding the Baby P case. He added: “It’s very hard to encourage people to take on a job where there is so much exposure.“I think it is the same all over the country but West Sussex was hit particularly hard. There were cases when managers were taking on the responsibility of supervising children.”

A specialist agency was appointed to identify recruits in the USA before four local authority officers travelled to interview them on a three day trip. The drive saw 18 experienced workers who were familiar with the British care system appointed on two-year temporary contracts. They will start in September and receive help and advice on housing, tax, and other issues associated with the move.
A council spokesperson stated, “The need to need to get social workers of the right quality and quantity is imperative to the council and we will continue to make recruitment a priority.”

The question is, how many other County Councils in the UK will also consider this approach?  Is this the right thing for West Sussex to do? One thing is certain – they need good quality social workers. Would the money spent on recruiting from overseas and training the social workers be better spent on training and retaining UK staff?

What do you think? Are they right to go to the USA? Has this worked for councils in the past?

Do you know who they are yet? I bet you don't....

Well, the election is firmly behind us, and the government has firmly got their feet under the table of power. But do you know who are going to now be responsible for the Health and Care sectors?

We thought it might be useful to show you:

Andrew Lansley CBE MP - Secretary of State for Health

National Security Council (Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingencies) and the Home Affairs Committee

Simon Burns MP - Minister of State ofr Health

His responsibilities include: Legislation NHS Performance Health Services Reconfiguration of Services Patient Safety Application of Quality Regulation NHS Workforce Mixed Sex Accommodation Connecting for Health

Paul Burstow MP - Minister of State for Care Services

His responsibilites include: Long Term Care Reform Adult Social Care Carers Personal Health Budgets Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults End of Life Care Long Term Conditions, including cancer and diabetes Dementia Mental Health Physical Disabilities Autism Learning Disabilities

Ann Milton MP - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health

Her responsibilites include: Public Health, including sexual health, tobacco, drugs and alcohol Vaccination and Immunisation Blood and Transplants Fertility and Embryology Fluoridation Food, diet and nutrition Children’s Health Maternity Services Nursing and Midwifery Health Visiting Professional Regulation Medical Education and Training

Earl Howe - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Quality

His responsibilities include: NHS Constitution NHS Commissioning Reform Primary Care Dentistry Medicines, Pharmacy and Industry NICE Research and Development Innovation Finance Review of Arm’s Length Bodies