Council providing three-minute care visits to vulnerable - ombudsman

Overworked staff allocated extremely short care calls by local authority struggling to meet users' needs

Care workers are taking as little as three minutes to help vulnerable people in their own homes, the social care ombudsman has found, after discovering a council was allocating extremely short visits to hundreds of people.

Amid chronic staff shortages and rising unmet care needs nationwide, a homecare worker commissioned by Warrington metropolitan borough council sometimes stayed for just three minutes, despite the family paying for the full visit. The council was found to have allocated 15-minute care calls to more than 300 people in the region, despite national guidance stressing these were not usually appropriate".