Bureaucracy gone mad

It is tragedy enough that the town has lost one of the few sources of employment but it is catastrophic for the 20 residents who have called it their home since becoming unable to live independently.

Beamsmoor has been at the heart of Sedbergh for the past 20 years, providing a vital service for our small close-knit community. The implications of this event are unthinkable. Many of our townsfolk have been able to come to Beamsmoor to receive personal care which they are no longer able to carry out for themselves at home. We have also been a haven for family carers, providing much-needed respite care for their loved one. What is to happen to them now?

It has always been a comfort to know that whenever the day came that we needed to consider seeking help, either for a family member or indeed ourselves, there would be provision close at hand.

Yes, we have to have guidelines, rules and regulations, in all walks of life, but when they are to the extreme and the consequences terminate in the anguish, distress, heartbreak and trauma I witnessed at Beamsmoor last Tuesday (May 20), no way in this world is there any justification for such stringency.

When the enforcement culminates in staff spending more time in the classroom and being swamped by enormous amounts of paperwork, leaving little time to do the job for which they were employed, it defies comprehension and does little more than deter many from taking up employment in the caring environment, as, sadly, is the case at Beamsmoor, the inability to recruit staff leading to its closure.

Compassion, discretion and respect for dignity can neither be taught nor learnt in the classroom, it most certainly cannot be acquired from a piece of paper with the letters NVQ written upon it. In all my years as a carer, I have yet to meet a client who requests to see proof of your competence before they will allow you to tend to their personal care. They are humbly apologetic and eternally grateful that you care enough for your fellow man to be able to perform the task in the first place.

It is all very well for those in power to draw up a package, which to them on paper, appears to fit the bill, give it a name, wrap it up in the guise of protecting the vulnerable', and then lay the law down. They have no idea the effect their implementation has in reality. I can assure you it has done nothing to protect the vulnerable at Beamsmoor. It is bureaucracy gone mad.

I would like to invite Mr Blair to explain the National Minimum Care Standards to our residents; after all they are supposedly for their benefit. I think he would have a difficult task convincing them it was for their own good when all it has done for them is cost them the home they love.

We are all victims, the residents, the staff and the management, victims of a circumstance that should never have been allowed to come about, one which everyone of us was powerless to prevent.

It is this overwhelming sense of helplessness that has prompted me to put pen to paper. However, I am left with the frustration of knowing nothing I say, or do, will make any difference to those who have no idea who I am but nevertheless decide for me what they deem to be in my best interest. I beg to differ.

Carole Bain

Social care co-ordinator

Beamsmoor

May 29, 2003 15:00