Carers at home - how do they work?

You can believe what you like! She is entitled to about four weeks of four visits a day. That's on the NHS. She lives in an area with a lot of elderly people and one of the carers has said she goes to a few people within walking distance of our house here. The carer came tonight, took her to the toilet, changed her into a nightclothes and put her onto her bed. I don't think that took more than five minutes.

Two or three years ago she broke a bone and we had to pay for carers. It was £50 a day, half an hour in the morning and half an hour at night. She is in the Midlands.

Find this hard to believe too. A carer can't drive to 40 different calls in one day and provide care when she gets there.

You can pay a carer to come for as long as you want and for as long as the carer agrees.

I find £25 for half an hour hard to believe to be honest. Private carers usually start from £18 an hour.

My mum is having NHS carers following an operation. The one who came tonight stayed about five minutes and said she had been to nearly 40 homes today.

You can't pay for Carer to come for a few hours! My mum had to pay £25 for half an hour three years ago!

Ask them what they would like help with. My mum could do with some help getting washed and dressed but is resistant. What she did say she would like is someone to make her breakfast and a cup of tea in the mornings and help her make her bed. So that’s what we got the carers in for.

If they happen to arrive when she’s in the middle of washing and dressing, they can subtly assist, plus they change the bed if she’s had an accident in the night, without her even registering that’s what they’re doing, plus they do all sorts of other little things without making a big deal out of it.

Get them in for whatever your parents will agree they need, then let things evolve.

If this will be funded by them I would give 2 or 3 local companies a call, meet them in the home and chat about what they can do
Care is usually split into 3 components, companionship, home help and personal care/meds
Biggest issue at the moment is shortage of staff meaning lack of capacity to help
Care companies are well used to people who 'are not sure' and the good ones will work with this
Good luck

Carers can also be a companionship/ 'babysitting' service to give your dad more of a break. So, if the carer came round for a few hours in the afternoon, they could either stay with your mum so that your dad could go out for a proper break, or alternatively take your mum out on an outing somewhere so that your dad can have some 'free time' at home.

I'm in Wales and I don't know how much things vary around the UK but this is my experience.

Mum lived in a granny annex in our garden. She had very limited mobility - had to use a zimmer frame or wheelchair to get from the bedroom/bathroom to the sitting room, unable to dress/undress, prepare meals/drinks.

After much back and forth between me and the surgery mum eventually had a visit from a social worker at the beginning of November 2019. We heard nothing from them again even though I chased it up every couple of weeks until the beginning of March 2020 when a young girl turned up on the doorstep as I was getting mum up and introduced herself as coming from the care agency! Mum had been assessed as needing two calls a day - morning and evening - and I was already providing the rest of her care.

Someone came for 45 mins in the morning to help her dress, get her into her armchair and give her breakfast. A different carer came in the evening to help her to bed. The times were variable! Mum had said she would rather get up late and go to bed late and it was often 11 o'clock before the carer came to get her up and they came around 9 o'clock in the evening. Once mum was settled in her arm chair with her breakfast the carers would potter round and do whatever they saw needed doing in the time they had left - make the bed, wipe over the kitchen, put the vacuum round. The kitchen was pretty much unused - I would cook in my own kitchen and bring her meals to her and put the crockery and cutlery into the dishwasher so it wasn't like it needed a major clean. My daughter would clean for her every week as well so there was no need for regular housework from the carers.

We had to complete a financial assessment and mum had to pay £100 a week. She would ask every day who would be coming for the rest of the week and we would fill it in on her calendar as she was uncomfortable with a stranger walking in. We had a key safe by the door and the number was shared with the care company.

I really appreciated the carers coming - it meant that I didn't have to go in and out to mum in the morning - it had got to the stage where I could go in to see her and if she was ready I would do her breakfast in bed, go home and go back when she called me to say she was ready to get up. It meant I didn't have to stay with her until she was ready to go to bed - she liked to stay up until 11 pm and then would want me to help her into bed so it was often 11.30/11.45 before I could leave her.

I wasn't aware/was in denial that mum was in the early stages of dementia (a whole other story) and she was very unreasonable about the need for carers. She wanted me to pay them because they were coming to help me, not her. They were coming because I was too lazy to give her a little bit of help. Mum liked the majority of the carers, a couple she wasn't keen on, for no good reason. But again I think that was to do with the dementia.

For me, as her carer, they were a lifeline and enabled me to have a couple of hours in my own home that I wouldn't have had without them.

As the dementia progressed I realised aware that we needed more help and I was getting to the point where I was going to ask for her to be assessed again then she had a fall, ended up in hospital and went from there to a home.

I really appreciated the carers, as your dad might, and mum tolerated them because I refused to back down.