I’m not talking about romantic novels I am referring to the transcripts of dicsiplinaries. As a senior manager I regularly chaired disciplinary hearings. Wickedness, ignorance or incompetence, managers have to decide. Chairing a disciplinary hearing is all part of being a manager. Fiddling expenses, favouring family or friends and accessing pornography on the works computer is wrong but abusing vulnerable people in our care is wicked.
Abuse is rarely straight forward physical assault. In residential and nurseling homes abuse is often psychological and emotional. It’s about power. It starts with organising the work around the convenience of staff rather than the needs of residents and it leads to individuals withholding help from residents /patiants who are seen as too demanding.
If someone needs help to go to the toilet, if they can’t feed themselves or if someone else looks after their pain killers then they tend to be compliant, uncomplaining even grateful. If they’re not the next time they need to go to the toilet they may have to wait a little longer.
It takes a brave resident to complain. Usually it is a new member of staff who blows the whistle.
As a chair of a disciplinary hearing you will need to decide what is ignorance; lack of training, lack of insight. What is down to poor management; a failure to promote good practice and challenge bad practice. And what is just wickedness.
Place a drink just outside of the reach of a profoundly disabled person and then removing the untouched drink with the words ‘not thirsty then’. Making someone wait so long to go to the toilet that they soil themselves then make loud comments about the smell and ‘why didn’t you say you needed to go to the toilet’. Such cruelty is not something that additional training can address.
Caring for very dependent people; toileting, dressing, washing, feeding and lifting heavy people in and out of bed and on and of the toilet is physically hard work. But it shouldn’t lead to people being treated like objects.
Not everyone is appreciative of the help provided; some people are angry and frustrated about their disability and dependency. Caring for vulnerable people can be emotionally draining. This may explain why some staff react the way they do but it’s not a reason to give such staff a second chance.
Hard work, antisocial shifts and low pay mean it is often difficult to recruit staff but that’s not a reason to tolerate lower standards.
If you dismiss this member of staff they are unlikely to get another job, they have a family, a mortgage. But what sort of manager would you be if you didn’t.