Showing posts from November 2013

Lancashire Fire and Rescue & Routes Healthcare Partnership

Hot off the press!

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Partnership working.

Starting in December Routes Healthcare in Blackpool, (Providers of Health, Social and Childcare Professionals), will be working alongside Lancashire Fire and Rescue  Service(LFRS) to ensure our staff are even better trained in fire safety awareness and also protect our clients, especially the most vulnerable.

Routes Healthcare will send each client a letter inviting them to have a free Home Fire Safety Check conducted by the LFRS. On completion of a fire safety check, the LFRS, will feed back to Routes Healthcare any recommendations they have, to be included in the Routes Healthcare care plans.

Special consideration will be made for clients with mobility or cognitive difficulties and specialist equipment such as smoke alarms and fire retardant bedding may be supplied free of charge for those at risk.

Routes staff will be trained by our own training team and assessed and certificated by LFRS. It is a great opportunity for us to do some partnership working and we are considering rolling it out to all branches once we have liaised with the relevant managers and fire services.

Fire risk is generally not high on our agenda, until there is an incident often with devastating consequences.

We want all our staff and clients to be fire safe. Winter is a high risk time because people are using heaters and fires, soon the boughs will be decked with holly and other decorations, presenting an increased risk for us all.

Please be fire aware, have a warm and safe winter!

Routes Healthcare Training Team

Zero-hours contracts have been unfairly demonised and oversimplified, finds new CIPD research

The use of zero-hours contracts in the UK economy has been underestimated, oversimplified and unfairly demonised, with the positive experience of the majority of people employed on them being overlooked, according to new research from the CIPD.   A survey of more than 2,500 workers has found that zero-hours workers are just as satisfied with their job as the average UK employee, and more likely to be happy with their work-life balance than other workers.

To read more about zero hour contracts click here.

Help with fuel costs

You or the person you are looking after may be entitled to certain payments and grants to help with fuel bills or making your home warmer and more energy efficient. There are also simple things you can do to save energy and reduce your bills.

To read more about this click here.

'24 hour complaints' process needed

Patients, carers and relatives should be able to raise concerns over NHS care 24 hours a day, suggests Health Ombudsman Julie Mellor.

In this week's Scrubbing Up - she explains how she hopes the Clwyd-Hart Review of hospital complaints will help tackle the "toxic cocktail" of reluctance by patients to complain and defensiveness of NHS organisations when addressing complaints and concerns.

To read more about this then please click here.

Hospitals in England told to publish staffing levels

Hospitals in England are to be made to publish monthly details of whether they have enough nurses on their wards.

From April, patients will be able to see the numbers on a new national safety website.

There will be no national minimum staffing standard, but it is likely to include recommended nurse to patient ratios for different types of ward.

It is part of the government's response to the public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital scandal.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to address MPs on the issue later.

The move has been called for by nurse leaders and MPs in recent months.

To read more detail click here.