New report shows improvements needed in LTC for personal care and socialization

Long-term care (LTC) homes are failing to provide necessary personal care, according to BC’s senior advocate’s latest survey results. The survey was completed by more than 10K residents and nearly 8K frequent visitors and family members.

The report says there’s been “little improvement in areas such as frequency of bathing, help at mealtimes, meaningful activities, and engagement with staff and other residents.”

While a large portion of respondents had positive outlooks on staff working at their LTC homes—87% of residents reported they trust staff to take good care of them and 95% of residents reported they’ve never been treated unfairly by staff due to their race or culture—aspects of personal care and grooming appear to be a lower priority.

Half of residents who responded reported “rarely” or “never” being bathed as frequently as they desire. In BC, bathing frequency is not a defined regulation in LTC.

Another major concern was the lack of socialization available to residents, with two-thirds of residents saying they “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never” find enjoyable things to do on evenings and weekends, or find opportunities to explore new skills or interests.

More than half say they “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never” have a close friend and many in care homes will spend most of their time sitting alone or watching television.

More than half of respondents said staff “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never” make time for a friendly conversation or ask how to meet their needs. The report highlights the need for increased personal care time with both visitors and staff.

The BC Nurses Union has called LTC staffing issues “unending” and “dangerously low”, with the pandemic highlighting the straining workload staff deal with in LTCs. This inevitably has led to reduced personal time essential to residents living in full-time care.

Last month, Capital Daily reported on findings that for-profit care homes were spending less money on direct patient care, as well as less money per patient. This issue was worse at for-profit facilities, with not-for-profit homes spending roughly 25% more per patient on direct and indirect care—all while the for-profit facilities generated seven times more revenue.