Carer who cried at Panorama expose explains why she loves her job

She said: "What carers can do is give people as much power over their own lives as they can have. If Mrs Smith always has the light off when you leave, you still always ask her "Shall I turn the light off?" The point is that Mrs Smith has made the decision."
She cried when she watched a Panorama expose on April 9th in which undercover journalists who got jobs as carers revealed huge short comings in the care provided by two companies operating in Harrow and York.
Mrs Lancaster currently cares for eight people in Beaconsfield; men and women aged from 52 to 103 who need help with day to day living either because they are either too ill or too frail to care for themselves, or because they want the social contact.
Clients vary enormously in their degree of independence. Some pay for their own care which might involve a weekly trip to the shops or drive to a hospital to visit a relative, or simply taking a shower. Others may need a twice daily visit to get them up in the morning and to bed in the evening. Those in the greatest need require all day or even 24 hour care.
Mrs Lancaster said: "Once of my clients is completely paralysed, and she needs care from 9.30am when her husband goes to work to 6pm when he comes home. She can't wipe her own nose or scratch her own arm on her own."
Clients tend to have chronic conditions such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurones disease or cancer, or dementia.
Mrs Lancaster works for Universal Care, in Windsor End, Beaconsfield, which places carers in over a thousands visits a week throughout South Bucks and beyond. The company also has 62 carers who live in. As an SRN, Mrs Lancaster is a senior carer and helps to train new recruits, most of whom do not have a nursing background.
But the valuable part of the job is the social contact it brings to the client. "A robot could deal with the physical needs, the human contact is as important if not more so, because if somebody is distressed they are not going to get better."
She said: "I love the job, there's huge variety, two days are never the same and it's very flexible, you can work the hours to suit your family. It's well paid. I can't think of a better job. But you have to love people to do this job, and not everybody does."
Mrs Lancaster, from High Wycombe, gave this interview in Universal Care's new training room on Wednesday, after it was declared open by Mayor Henry Wilson.
Peter Cullimore, founder, said: "The recent Panorama programme put carers in an extremely bad light, and it showed that if you are going to do then it's got to be done well. Last week we placed carers at 1104 different visits and I'm not aware that any of those didn't take place."
To become a carer at Universal Care candidates have to undertake a three day course in policy, procedure and practical care. This is followed by an interview, a criminal record check, and the taking up of references.