How Many Carers Should Be On A Night Shift At A Residential Home?

How Many Carers Should Be On A Night Shift At A Residential Home?

One of the most expensive aspects of running of a Residential Home is staffing. Making decisions about how many carers should be on a night shift, and when to make use of Nursing Agency services for extra help can be a difficult decision, since there are financial and ethical considerations.

However, this guide will quickly answer the question “How many carers should be on a night shift?” and give you advice on what to do if you find yourself short-staffed in a pinch.

How Many Carers Should Be On A Night Shift – What Does The CQC Say?

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the regulatory body responsible for Residential Homes, and their guidance is simple, but comes with some grey areas:

“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 when it comes to how many carers should be on a night shift, there is no ratio, minimum, or percentage – there isn’t even a distinction between night-shifts and day-shifts! 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.

What Does This Mean For Your Home?

This means that, ultimately, the choice and responsibility for how many carers should be on a night shift lies with the Home’s Manager. Many Residential Homes use a spreadsheet to keep track of their care staff per resident requirements, tailored to their specific needs.

Because the answer varies from Home to Home, there’s no straightforward answer. Every Home will have different needs and requirements for their residents – if your residents have greater needs, then more, more qualified, staff are required on-hand in your Home in order to meet the CQC’s requirements.

For example, imagine a Nursing Home with 35 residents, but only 2 members of staff on the night shift – the CQC would most likely consider this to be an unacceptably low number of staff. This is because many common procedures in Residential Homes, such as using a bed hoist, involve 2 nurses/carers. As a result, 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.

How To Respond To Last-minute Staff Shortages

If you’ve desperately searched for ‘how many carers should be on a night shift?’ because you’re not sure whether the night staff are going to arrive to relieve you tonight, then don’t worry! Help is at hand. Medilink Nursing (whose website you’ve luckily landed on) provides short-term, and short-notice care staff for last-minute situations such as this.

We specialise in finding last-minute cover for homes, and as a result, it forms a large portion of our business. If you need someone fast, call 0113 877 6383 – we’re on the line from 6:00am to 10:30pm, every day of the year.

We also supply staff on a more ‘planned’ basis, if you aren’t in a hurry. If you’ve got staff on parental leave, on holiday, off sick, or if you just need some temporary extra hands at the Home? Get in touch, and we’ll organise cover for you.

Our Experienced Staff

We’ve got strict requirements in place for our agency staff, we don’t take on any old chumps. All of our agency staff require:

• Have 6 months of relevant industry experience in the UK within the last 2 years, or 2 years’ experience within the last 5. This way, we can ensure our staff can get straight to work in a UK Residential Home setting.
• 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 current, up-to-date training in all the mandatory fields – we refresh this training yearly.
• 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!

Get In Touch!

So, if you need some extra hands at your Home, last-minute or not, get in touch! You can reach us on 0113 877 6383, or email care@medilinknursing.com, or even request a shift from our website by clicking here. Our experienced staff are ready to assist – we hope to hear from you soon!

How many carers should be on a night shift at your Home? let us know in the comments below!