A sensory garden, four new bedrooms and a new wellbeing area are being built at Hafan Deg Care Home in Lampeter to improve care for residents with dementia, thanks to a £460,000 Welsh Government investment.
During her visit to the care home on Thursday (10 November) the Deputy Minister for Social Services, Julie Morgan, also met some new staff members and outlined the Welsh Government’s efforts to recruit more social care workers.
She said:
I am delighted to see work start on this important project which will greatly improve the experience for residents and their families. In line with our Dementia Action Plan for Wales this is an investment in new ways of caring and supporting people with dementia. This project is a great example of the health board and local authority working together to improve services.
The Deputy Minister also meet with new staff members at Hafan Deg.
The Welsh Government has invested £43m to ensure social care workers get a minimum wage of £9.90.
It is also working with Social Care Wales on an extensive recruitment campaign, ‘We Care Wales’, to promote careers in social care. A website, WeCare.Wales, has been set up to enable social care employers to advertise jobs in the sector for free, making it easier to recruit and for new staff to find a job.
In addition, the Welsh Government fund Social Care Wales to deliver a free three-day Introduction to Social Care course, focusing on topics including communication, safeguarding and working practices.
Apprenticeships are also available in social care, offering a way to gain training and develop new skills and qualifications while working and learning.
Ms Morgan added:
Our care workers provide a vital service to people in Wales, looking after many of us and our loved ones, providing expert care to people of all ages and with a wide range of needs.
We are investing in social care to deliver fair pay and improve working practices and career progressing to make the profession a better place to work.
Councillor Alun Williams, Ceredigion County Council Cabinet Member with responsibility for Through Age and Wellbeing said,
It's great to see this exciting opportunity being developed in Ceredigion, developing services that will be fit for the future supporting people with dementia in their local community. The council is committed to the continued recruitment of quality social care staff and creating opportunities through apprenticeships and training programmes and in so doing creating a workforce for the future.