How Many Care Staff Per Resident Are Required in Residential Homes in the UK? 2024

How Many Care Staff Per Resident Are Required in Residential Homes in the UK?

One of the most expensive parts of running of a residential home is staffing. Making decisions about how many staff members to have on-shift at a time, and when to make use of Nursing Agency services for extra help can be a difficult decision, as there are financial and ethical considerations.

This guide aims to quickly answer any staffing questions you may have, to help you run your Home as efficiently as possible, without risking the safety & wellbeing of your residents.

How Many Care Staff Per Resident Are Required in Residential Homes – What Does The CQC Say?

The CQC is the regulatory body that governs Residential Homes (among other things) in the UK. Their guidance is simple.

Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Regulation 18

“Providers must deploy sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff to make sure that they can meet people’s care and treatment needs and therefore meet the requirements of Section 2 of these regulations (the fundamental standards).”

So, there is no ratio, or any kind of specific “care staff per resident requirement”. The only rule is that the number of staff has to be enough to make sure that the CQC’s basic requirements in other areas are met. you can read the CQC regulations on staffing, here. Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Regulation 18

What Does This Mean For Your Home?

This means that ultimately, the care staff per resident decision lies entirely with the Home’s manager. As long as the level of care being provided meets the CQC’s other regulatory requirements, there are no limits or minimums.

Every Home will have different needs for their residents. If your residents have greater needs, then more, more qualified, staff are required on-hand in your Home.

As a quick example, let’s say a Home specialising in dementia care has 37 residents, but only 2 staff members working nights. The CQC would probably consider this to be an unacceptably low number, as many common procedures in Residential Homes (such as using a bed hoist) involve 2 carers. This means our example Home has a very low bandwidth when it comes to dealing with unexpected problems, and would be overwhelmed by the simple matter of two, two-person, problems arising at once.

Many Residential Homes use a spreadsheet to keep track of their care staff per resident requirements, tailored to their specific needs.

How to Respond to Unexpected or Short-Term Staffing Shortages

It’s not always possible, or appropriate, to hire new staff for every situation – that’s why Nursing Agencies such as ourselves exist. Medilink Nursing provides short-term (and short-notice if necessary!) temporary staff for Residential Homes.

Have you got staff on parental leave, sick leave, on holiday, gone AWOL, or anything else? Give Medilink Nursing a call, and we’ll find a replacement from our network of experienced Nurses and Carers.

Our Operations and Bookings team are available 7 days a week, including weekends and bank holidays, from 6:00am to 10:30pm, ensuring that you always have access to the nursing and care staff you need.

How We Vet Our Staff At Medilink

We don’t just take anybody at Medilink; we have strict requirements which must be met before staff can join our agency.

All of our agency staff, RGN’s, RMN’s and HCA’s MUST:

• Have current, up-to-date training in all the mandatory fields – we refresh this training yearly.
• Have a verifiable work history of at least five years, and provide two professional references, which we must be able to verify with the referees.
• Have 6 months of relevant industry experience in the UK in the last 2 years, or 2 years in the last 5. This way, we can ensure our staff fit right into a UK residential home environment.
• Undergo an Enhanced DBS Check with Adults and Children’s Barred List.
• Show us that they have the right attitude to look after others! If we wouldn’t want someone looking after us or our family, we wouldn’t want them looking after your residents.

Once they’ve met our expectations, we’ll provide a uniform and yearly up-to-date training so that they’re ready to meet yours!

If you need extra hands to temporarily improve your care staff per resident balance, give us a call! You can reach us at 0113 877 6383, or email care@medilinknursing.com, or even just request a shift from our website by clicking here.

We hope to hear from you soon!