Carer Sacked For Taking Client Home For Festive Meal

[irc]

Seems harsh. I can see this might have been blurring the lines between maintaining a professional distance but assuming he had no other discipline record a written warning would surely have sufficed. If an informal warning was not enough.

"A carer who took a disabled patient to his family home for a New Year's Day dinner was sacked for his “act of kindness”.

Paul McPhail, a support worker, extended the invitation after learning that the patient's family could not accommodate him.

The tribunal heard that Mr McPhail noted the patient was “agitated”, so he consulted his brother, who approved the idea.

Mr McPhail was fired by the Lifeways Group for “unprofessional” conduct and was accused of developing a personal relationship with the patient. "


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pa...

[boyse7en]

Isn't a carer supposed to care for the welfare of their clients? I thought that was the point.

[CMTMB]

No good deed goes unpunished.

[JagLover]

Safeguarding considerations are usually very strict for anyone dealing with vulnerable clients.

[Derek Smith]

There are rules. Everyone is free to disagree with them, but employees can't break them.

[Actual]

It is possible that such restrictions exist because the visit could also have been a good time to write a new will and get it witnessed.

[skylarking808]

Although 30 years ago it may have been more acceptable it is certainly a disciplinary nowadays.
It relates to eing able to keep professional boundaries and the power imbalance in relationships with vulnerable people. If anything happened on that visit who would be accountable?
Any carer would have appropriate training on such matters.

They are a carer and not their friend despite good intentions. If a carer is unable to separate their home and work life then it may not be the job for them anyway.

[ukwill]

It’s important that lonely, infirm people are isolated during the season of goodwill. Thankfully, as some have already mentioned, we have very, very important rules to make sure no one thinks to extend goodwill at such times.

This is very “progressive”.

[Dog Biscuit]

Yes sadly this is how it needs to be to protect vulnerable individuals despite the seemingly best intentions in this case.

We all know how easily this act of kindness could have gone very south.

Them's the breaks

[fido]

Reading the article, the key point is he "failed to document the event on New Year's Day" i.e. get permission from his employer.

[_Rodders_]

As ridiculous as it is it's likely a minimum wage job and a bloody hard one at that.

The sacking isn't going to be financially detrimental.

The bottom end of the care profession is mental for what they expect Vs the reward. I'm most surprised they've got the capacity to sack someone over such a trivial matter.