AIBU to complain about my mother's council carers not providing proper care?

Unfortunately, in my experience the calls are all about being quick and everything is hurry, hurry and not always about the needs of the client. Agree with PP about the way questions are asked too. Much quicker if client says no to food!

So you’d be available 4x a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? You’d willingly clean up a parent who had soiled themselves, or shower a reluctant parent? The carers are being paid minimum wage - less of there’s 2 of them. £1500 a month is an absolute bargain.

i meant to also say if you can’t do the washing employee a private agency to come in each morning for an hour and do the rest yourself to save money.

Potentially not practical depending on OPs other commitments. I know from experience with both, now deceased, parents, it is never just this easy.

Maybe the OP has a job or other family commitments.

haven't you noticed her hair not being clean?

in my experience carers need to see you there and think there’s a risk of you stopping by. Even if you don’t want to do the jobs yourself, stop by, get a ring doorbell and some internal cameras and call the agency every time something slips

Absolutely feedback if essential tasks are getting missed. Sadly it’s pretty much par for the course. I second the idea of the doorbell and their logs. In terms of arrival time that’s always going to be a time range and not exact because if someone earlier on the schedule has needed unexpected extra time then everything is thrown off, but they should still give the time your mum needs.
also they are most likely arranged by the council but from a private agency.

It's difficult isn't it OP

My grandmother had carers coming in but things didn't always go as planned, eg the carer who was there to cook her a meal would ask what she wanted and she would say, "Oh a sandwich" and the carer couldn't really do much about it.

When the council were putting a new kitchen in for her she went in to a care home for 2 weeks, there she started to put weight on because the question was, "Now would you like the chicken curry or the beef pie?"

Can you get a nanny cam?

Call the social work team who put it in for her and they can get the call logs and review it and if they’re not doing what they should they’ll follow up with their care quality team.

I would do it myself and save the £1500 a month

Carers leaving early is a big problem for us too - and I suspect for many dementia care clients.

My Mum has Alzheimers and we have a care plan detailing medicines and personal care. All broken down into washing, dressing, meals etc. The care agency has an app with a checklist the carers tick off. I can see this information on a version of tbe app for relatives.

However they still leave ten or twenty minutes early. They just type in the app that all care is completed and no more care is required. Or the start times they enter on the app are 10 minutes before their actual arrival time as recorded on our doorbell camera.

Or they say to Mum, 'Is there anything else you need? Mum says no out of politeness. Also because of her dementia. She doesm't understand this is a request to leave early, yet she will still be paying for the full visit. This is despite one of the checklist items being to sit and chat to Mum and another being a request to stay for the full duration of the call.

I get very fed up about this, it seems like exploitation of people with dementia. It feels like theft really. In a workplace, someone only working two thirds of their paid time would be pulled up on this. Even worse, the carers have sometimes said that they need to rush off because their next client has full awareness and writes their times down.

We've raised this with the care agency and the local council (we too pay privately but council coordinates). Things might improve for about 48 hours but it very quickly slides back.

I hope you find a solution OP. Your mother's carers not turning up at all/completely missing calls could be due to the person before them having a fall etc. But even our agency would phone me to explain, or call another carer in to cover.

Check the care plan includes personal care. Talk to the registered manager of the care agency. Don’t worry that they are ‘council funded’ as they are still being paid.
if it doesn’t improve and personal care is on the care plan then raise it as neglect.
If they say personal care is not part of the agreed package then explain it needs to be and get a review.
Speak to the contracts monitoring team at the local council

The careers will be under pressure to get to the next job, can you check what they have been asked to do.

Get a ring doorbell and also ask to see the log for the month, detailing showering, hair washing, time spent with mum as comments have been made in regard to her care.