registered nurse

clinical lead nurse

deputy manager

chef

nurse

Four Seasons Health Care

A typical day for me is to attend the handover to be informed of any changes that may have occurred or to be informed of new residents etc. Then its off to start getting the residents ready for their day and serve breakfast as well as attend to their toileting needs as well as many other things. 
That being said it is quite hard to spend time getting to know or interact with the residents as there is that much recording of things and paperwork to be done. I personally feel that this is unfair to the residents and can make them feel unwanted as you are constantly being pushed for time and as a result can only really interact with a resident as you are spending the 5 - 10 minutes getting them up or washed/showered or feeding them.
I have learnt many things over my years as working as a care assistant. Some things that are even handy for when you are not in work.
A few of the staff that I work with are quite friendly and we all get along rather well. We work well as a team and that is the only thing that is keeping me from leaving as I know they will be very hard pushed to find replacement staff and the fact they usually work short as there are staff that seem to ring in sick on a regular basis.

JOB WORK/LIFE BALANCE: This is something that would need to be addressed as staff are mostly overworked. The hours are quite long but that can be expected. The most annoying and frustrating part is the ROTA!! The rota is always put out late, and you never know what your working in advance. Example: The rota only comes out on a Wednesday for the week coming instead of for the next 2 or 3 weeks which would be far more useful as you would be able to make plans etc. Also if you have to make a doctors appointment it is easier to do so as you know what you would be working. 


SALARY/BENEFITS: The pay grade for a care assistant is poor. For what we do on a regular basis in work for the hourly rate we get is like slave labor. To top that we do not get any overtime rate and the night staff don't get any extras either such as unsociable hours etc.
As for benefits there is NONE!! 

JOB SECURITY/ADVANCEMENT: I feel your job is only secure so long as your willing to put up with the company. They seem to have that many rules and regulations that if you speak up about anything you will be breaking some sort of rule or code of conduct. As for job advancement, I wouldn't even want to progress within the Four Seasons. Unless it was to a role were drastic changes could be made so that the staff feel happier working throughout their employment and the residents are able to feel more at home and have a better quality of life in general.

Working here as a maintenance manager/maintenance man had its pro's and con's but unfortunately this particular home wasn't cared for in anyway at all. A typical day would be to go in the morning and sign in and unlock my office, then I would go to each floor and do a daily walk around of each floor to check for any issues and also grab the maintenance log books where requests are made and have to sign them off, then I would report to the care home manager and try and have a meeting everyday but this was not the case because they always said there was no time for that, then I would probably raise issues with staff about fire safety throughout the home but they didn't want to listen and only a select few did, and then you would be doing you daily and monthly checks and responding to any urgent or jobs that come up, I did have some enjoyable moments with certain staff and residents and family as you have to try and make it a happy day for them all the time and make sure they had all there comforts in place to make them feel there living at home, I also you to enjoy siting down with the activities person and trying too help them but there was none because there was no funding for this which was disgusting, the hardest part of the job was the challenges I had to face with the staff members instead of them just listening they wanted to argue. management got silly and had a numerous of managers called into take over the home and the nasty thing I have ever seen is a manager being forced out when another manager came in, and then that manager left and another manager came in and when that manager came in we go to form a good working relationship at the time but by then I just had enough and seen enough and I moved out of that home.

I worked for four seasons for 9 years!! And never gained a single qualification! The management was a disgrace and employed 4 different managers while i was employed! The level of nastiness, pettiness and unprofessionalism is beyond belief! There is no job security at all! If u are off sick you are punished luke children, i could not find suitable childcare for my two children and had to ring in, checking the request book on my next shift the day off i had booked for my sons birthday had been changed petty!!
The people you work under e.g unit manager and rmns/rgns are an utter waste of time, the care of the residents is borderline abuse unless they have family members who visit then they are the ones who get the best care!
Residents hardly partake in activities!
They rate the residents pay is ridiculous to be rationed with there food there is never enough food to go around considering there shoukd be two options af meal times there should be enough for each resident to choose from either!
The "cooked" breakfasf is a farce as on numerous occasions only 3 or 4 sausages were sent up 3 or 4 rashers of bacon no eggs or any other extras for upto 42 residents and cold toast if any was sent usually the catering staff expect the care staff to make the toast!
The porridge is awfull and i peraonally dont find it edible!
The up keep of the home i worked at was disgraceful at times the beds would not work there was permanently no hot water in residents rooms blocked toilets over flowing waste bins and broken drawers and wardrobes!
The housekeeping staff were also rude and very unapproachable if asked to clean a residents bathroom full of feces or a carpet they were allowed to refuse and the care staff were also allowed to then clean it with paper towels or wash wipes with shampoo or soap!! 
The residents hardly have underwear or toiletries and heavily rely on swapping underwear between residents also toiletries.
There is not enough towels, flannels or sheets for the beds!
This overall was the worst place of employment i have ever known do not waste your time applying!!!

Was briefly employed at care home rated as requiring improvement and with clear history of failing to meet standards mostly related to management, staffing and poor records.

Discovered no fewer than five separate acting managers overseeing this one care home none of whom worked full time on site at the home itself.

They weren't involved directly in the daily running but prevented management and senior care staff from having any clout or say in how things were done.  They relied solely on business admin management approaches, were unwilling to listen or even invite and encourage ideas and feedback it was evident straight away why the home was in such dire state and couldn't seem to get out of its slump.

Sad thing is with just a surprisingly minimal amount of effort and expense the home could quite easily be helped to turn around and get back on the up which I say with confidence from experience in this department.  The "Too many cooks" factor seems lost on senior management who approach every problem by throwing another manager into the mix at great cost and more chaos.

I have no qualms about working with and alongside care homes that are struggling but I quickly realised this company has no idea what it's doing, couldn't care less which accounts for the staggeringly high number of managers it's gone through in the last few years. 

Ludicrous.  I have never known anywhere paying over £100k per year in salaries yet still not be able to improve and drive standards up so they are meeting the bare minimum. To think if they had taken on board or at least be willing to listen, they could have improved the home paying one or two managers and used the remaining cash to help improve standards, get staffing levels and training in better shape and still have some cash left over in the pot.  

The response to every poor review is the same churned out spiel though which says most if not all you need to know.  Any employer or company worth its weight knows the value of feedback to improve.

FSHC doesn't care or even see the need to pretend it cares.

Initially I began the job willing to learn and looking forward to being in an environment with a sense of purpose and the aim of helping care for people.  Over a period of time I lost any passion or energy for the role due to varying issues I experienced as a member of staff, these included but weren't limited to frequently being understaffed, long stressful days with a lack of support, poor pay as it was only minimum wage and sometimes not getting the shorter breaks if it was busy. 

Any feeling of being valued came from the family of residents or the residents themselves but never from the management, the fact that staff are doing their best to provide care and yet are paid the bare minimum to do so shows a real lack of appreciation for the type of work care workers do from both four seasons and the industry as a whole. 

There was also a sense of feeling like an outsider at times, I slowly got used to different personalities over a period of time and made some friends but also got a sense of people not wanting to work with me or other staff members for varying reasons, in my case it could of been because of me not being the strongest person and the job involved alot of lifting. 

I found this interesting because alot of the time I would get put on the same duties and therefore not get an opportunity to improve and the training when I first began only lasted a week, I've had longer training periods working in fast food places than I did in a care home which surely has a more complex list of duties. 

Overall I would say that the job lacked a sense of making me and I am sure other staff members feel like they were treated as human beings and not disposable. To anyone who is looking at working in this industry I would say look outside of four seasons, the amount of bad reviews on them is too many to count and mine is just another in a big sea of unhappy current and past employees. 
 

I didn't enjoy my time at Four seasons as a hca and left after only 3 months. As a member of the nights team I felt too much was expected of the two carers and one nurse on duty to 40+ residents in the buildings. I'm not ever in agreement with waking the majority of residents from a deep sleep at 5am to make them quickly wash and dress and go to the lounge when they clearly don't want to just so the team of 5 to 6 morning staff, plus 1 nurse, 1 activity Co ordinator and the manager have less to do on thier shift but this was expected no matter how hectic or problematic a night you had, not to mention also having to make time to give the residents supper, carrying out regular checks on residents, ;clean all the communal areas and kitchens and the mountain of paperwork for 40+ residents. I much preferred checking residents, asking if they want to get up and if they say no making sure they are clean (down below) and comfortable and letting them sleep on but this never went down well and if at least half the residents weren't up each morning by 7am you faced bitchiness and nastiness from the day staff. The staff were always gossiping and complaining about other shift groups and this caused alot of tension when you came in for your shift handover and whenever the long term staff were told the manager was implementing changes to how things were done the longer time staff members were not cooperative at all and refused to implement the changes. I was always stressed, my start and finish times would be changed often as I was shunted between the two separate buildings on site that both had different start and finish times which played havoc with childcare arrangements, the pay was minimum wage and not near enough remuneration for the amount of work involved in a night shift not to mention the unsociable hours and I just down right hated working for this company  hence my rather short time with them. 

Falling to nepotism, my career seach had come to a grinding halt.

A year later I find myself in a role that destroys me both physically and mentally, in an environment much akin to that of a prison.
My work-life balance is teetering so far to the company that I sometimes feel that I am to live and die by the organisation. Any chance I get, however few and far between is spent away from the home where I work; I find myself going for walks outside on my lunch break, as I feel that if I fail in doing so, I will fall into a catatonic and depressive state within the home.

The hours are... appocalyptic to say the least. I am contracted to 39 hours however routinely do more than is desired by any sensible human being. All this is done without my permission is an important note to add here. Shifts can vary from the deadly 12 hour to the nightmarish 4-10 shift, where, at least within our home, will be almost guaranteed to be followed by a 12 hour shift starting from 8 the following morning.

To have the priveledge to have two days off in a row often seems incomprehensible due to the rarity of the event.

The people you will be working with will be eyeing up your back with a satanic look whilst griping their knife and licking their lips vigorously, waiting, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. 

They aren't your co-workers. They are your enemy.

At least from their point of view. And as far as management and senior members of staff go, you will struggle to find a more unqualified and unintelligent group of people. I left school with a single a level and these are people who have degrees. Some even more than one which means in the eyes of the uninitiated, they are smarter than me. Which, if you work for this godforsaken company you will surely agree is a farce.

This company is a disgrace! They are a buisness and dont care about their residents or staff! Only in it for making money!!! The management favoured certain staff and anyone else who didnt suck round the manager didnt get a look in! No staff morale and under paid and over worked! New paper work piled on everyday as well as new rules to follow that simply didnt work in the care setting! Asked to do tasks that even went against moving and handling! Worst place i have ever worked and i have done many care jobs the pay was just about minimum wage but that wasnt even the issue it was the work you were expected to do for that pay!! 3/4 staff doing the work that should be done by around 7/8 staff! But you are treated like dirt managers dont care if you leave they see you as replaceable however if it were not for their staff they wouldnt even have a job themselves!!! Promises not kept my managers or staff! Things offered like extra pay was never given even though you done the work for it! I would not recommend working here to anyone worst of all the residents who are the back bone of everything do not get the care they deserve! The staff try their best but there is only so much they can do! Always short staffed, you couldnt even sit down for ten seconds to ask your resident how their day is going before your given another job to do! They pay £600 or more a week to get rich tea biscuits and custard creams even though they are promised fresh cream buns etc! Never even spied a bun the whole 4+ years i was there! The activities were none existant not even so much as a dvd stuck on! Even the building was dull hardly any colour or sensory items for dementia residents and that is because the manager wont spend the buget so they get their bonuses!!! Its a joke JUST DONT WASTE YOUR TIME ON A CARE COMPANY THAT DOESNT EVEN CARE!!!!!

Although the job is extremely rewarding and i enjoyed working with the other girls and guys that worked within the company, i found that the rota was always unfair, forcing certain staff to work every weekend, while the same staff got the same weekends off. 
The manager never cared for what we had to say, the same excuse we got each time was "im retiring soon i dont care" she lacked in compassion when it came to her staff, if there was a family emergancy for example she wasnt interested and just wanted to make sure that the shift was covered. 
Im not saying all four seasons companies are the same, but the one i worked at i would never work at again, it was only the care assistants that actually cared about the residents. The entertainment team was lacking in imagination and staff, the fundraisers that seemed to get money never actually seemed to be spent on the residents, or if it was it was for thing that everyone knew it wouldnt cost much. 
it got to the point where although the nursing staff managing the shift seemed to care about the residents they seemed to forget that they were people and talked about them as if they were boxes, they expected the staff to get people washed and dressed in 15 minutes whether they needed assitance with a shower or a bath etc, they just didnt get they wanted everyone to be treated the same, forgetting that each person is an individual.
You get no time to sit with your residents and their families and get to know them, you know the bare minimum about them and most of the time its only what the other carers have told you.
Its badly run, people are treated awful and i would never work there again.

Arrived for a 12 hr shift, 7.30 - 7.30, but you are asked to be there 10 minutes early (not paid for) for handover, and if you end up staying late, cos you haven't finished notes or such like, you don't get paid either.
I learned how to wash, bed bath, shower, assist feed in ultra quick time, or at least that is what we were told by management to do. "you should get someone washed/bed bathed and dressed, up and ready for the day in 15 minutes". "you should not take your breaks until everyone on the unit is up".
On the nursing unit, a lot of the residents were bed bound, and needed assistance continually throughout the day. Constant checks, assistance with feeding and personal hygiene. These times, may be the only time they get any company, so surely we should take our time, give them quality of care, have a chat, have a joke and not rush them?
Hardest part of job was not having any time to actually sit down and chat to the residents, 10 minutes here and there was nigh on impossible to do.
Most enjoyable part of the day was maybe getting that 10 minutes to chat to someone about "what are you knitting?, Who is it for", or talking with them about their memories, their family ...............................but unfortunately this did not happen very often.
I was told on my interview that they had a mini bus and residents were taken out trips regularly. But that never happened once when I was there, and was told it was mostly used for trips to B n Q.
Constantly being asked to do extra shifts, so learn to say no.
Most of other staff are worked off their feet, no time to do everything.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Registered nurse 304 salaries reported	£15.03 per hour
Clinical lead nurse 4 salaries reported	£17.66 per hour
Deputy manager 5 salaries reported	£16.50 per hour
Chef 60 salaries reported	£14.88 per hour
Nurse 18 salaries reported	£14.37 per hour

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