My relative has profound disabilities and health needs and attends respite at a CQC registered facility. I am happy with the care knowing the Registered Manager has oversight of the service. I am concerned to hear the company is suggesting changing the out-of-hours arrangements which would mean the registered manager would only be contactable if there’s an issue when it’s his turn on the on-call rota. The people on the on-call rota are not registered managers and I’m worried that should advise be needed, the registered manager will not be the person contacted. Surely this is a breach of registration?
Dear Jane,
Thank you for your question.
This is my personal opinion.
It is wrong to expect the Registered Manager to be on call 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
It would appear to me that the home is being responsible in developing a rota that will involve other senior members of staff at the facility and that those senior members of staff will have the competencies required to deal with unforeseen situations.
I would expect and you might like to check this that in a situation where there is a serious emergency that it would be possible to contact either the Registered Manager or Director of the organisation.
I hope that this is helpful and I must stress that I believe that it would be unreasonable to expect anyone to be on call 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Sheila