Skills for Care launches ‘Safe Staffing’ online guide

A new online guide has been launched by Skills for Care to help social care employers make sure they have the right number of skilled staff to meet the needs of their service.

As well as ensuring providers have enough staff with the right values, knowledge and skills to deliver high quality care and support, ‘Safe Staffing’ helps services meet their legal and regulatory responsibilities with the CQC.

Skills for Care Project Manager Rob Hargreaves said: “As a manager, it’s your responsibility to decide how many staff you need to deliver a safe, effective and responsive service.

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“This will depend on your service and the people you support, and it could change over time. This guide will help you decide how many staff you need and what you can do to maintain these levels.

“But safe staffing isn’t just about numbers – it’s about ensuring staff have the right values and skills, and stay long enough to build trusting relationships with the people they support.

“Having a consistent team of staff who know individuals well is an important part of safe staffing. It enables staff to get to know people and their needs better and makes them more likely to notice changes in people’s health and wellbeing.”

The online guide includes tips about deciding how many staff an organisation needs to provide a safe service, contingency planning for short term staff shortages, embedding the right recruitment checks and how to effectively use bank and agency staff.

You can download the guide free from Skills for Care’s website at: www.skillsforcare.org.uk/safestaffing.