today's news

Yet again the news includes an item about a care home that has not been achieving the standards that we would hope they would aspire to. Whilst it is good that we are highlighting such instances, lets not forget a couple of things - 1- the report is quite clear that staff were not properly trained and competent in the care of those with whom they were working. and 2- and perhaps more importantly this is one care home and we must make sure that the good work and excellent achievements by many are not lost in the furore around one failure. I am not implying that this is the odd instance of things going wrong, I think every care home could identify something that they could do better, but many are delivering excellent care and working hard to ensure that staff are properly trained and competent to work with their clients. The feedback from Dignity Action Day and the research that the Dignity Council did around the Common Core Principles highlighted that there was a lot of good things happening out there, and many of them are not publicised because people don't see it as anything special, but just the way things should be done. My message is twofold, don't assume one failure is representative of the sector and lets highlight and champion the excellent practice that is happening on a daily basis.