22.05.12
Balancing the benefits
How much experience and training is needed for tasks involving feeding patients or helping them to drink?
Unions have suggested that this is work that requires specific skills and experience, and not something that can be picked up in a two-week course for a work placement.
Offering work experience and training to the unemployed is a great way to get people into work and improve their prospects. Their help in simple tasks can also aid busy hospitals which have stretched resources.
But these benefits must be weighed against the possibility of poorer quality care, or even harm towards patients. This latter must take priority above unemployment, at least in the hospital setting.
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Image c. Donovan