Posting this under a different account from usual in case it comes back to me.
Anyway, I live in the UK and due to losing my job recently I've had to go back into working in nursing homes. I honestly hated doing it but it's pretty much the only thing I have any decent experience in so whatever. I work agency though, so I can pick my own shifts and get paid more than if I worked for a home (interestingly the agency advices us not to tell the other staff how much we're paid in case it “damages morale”).
Anyway, in the several months I'd not been working in care it seems it has got worse. It wasn't exactly stellar to begin with, but the home I was at last week had an awful lot of agency staff on the floor, and not much permanent staff. That was already something of a concern, but whatever.
However, yesterday we only had four people on our unit in the morning. This is already pretty bad because the unit needs six people so there are enough people to take care of everyone. However, it turned out that two of them were only in until the early afternoon, at which point there were only going to be two carers (management did a shit job with the rota) – myself and one other person. For a unit of as many people as we had this was far too low a number. It meant that people were left waiting for personal care for far longer than they should have been, and they got extremely distressed as the day went on. By the time the shift had finished I was aching all over.
At least because I'm agency I don't have to go in for several days.