V basic question - care package and housekeeping

As previously said, the carers will just be there to help to dress and shower her, and possibly provide a quick meal.

As she already has a cleaner one option would be to ask if she can come in 2 or 3 times a week until your mother is recovered enough to do tasks herself. You could arrange an online shopping order for her when the cleaner is there and can unpack it.

My mother paid privately for carers and they would do whatever she wanted, so that is another option (we used Home Instead). As well as personal care they did housework, went shopping, did the laundry, cooked meals - anything she needed. Obviously to do all this they needed a reasonable time slot each day, a lot longer than the brief care visits provided by the local authority.

Is there any neighbours who can help also? My grandfather neighbours took over putting his bins out for him for example.

I would say easiest option now if she’s happy to pay is increasing cleaner. I assume it’s same person so she knows them anyway and they can continue as usual but increase to include laundry and bed change and anything else weekly. Even without injury, at 90 she’s slowly going to need more help with heavy lifting things like changing bedding.

Then if you or sister can go down weekends you both have time to help with other stuff or take her out and about to do fun stuff and not just laundry

m and s finest ready meals are good

Get wiltshire farm foods or similar delivered. Easily heated but more like a proper meal. There will then only be the odd cup or bowl to wash up.

Reablement care is just short term, so there will be another assessment where it’s decided if mum needs ongoing care (and if so who pays) at which point it will switch to another company, or a few weeks of reablement may be enough.

Reablement is usually only personal care so yes a family member will need to put something in place for laundry and shopping, although carers will heat up a meal.

you could look at upping the cleaner to weekly so they can put the shopping away if delivered or swapping to a home help instead.

meal wise either supermarket delivery’s but carers really will only ping meals or do cereal/toast. You could look at Wiltshire farm food delivery’s (if you have a key safe they are dbs checked and will p
Put away etc) or meals on wheels type organisations are great.

Increase cleaner days and hours - once every week. Will cleaner do laundry also if paid for longer hours?

I would suggest whoever lives 1hr away goes the next few weekends. 1hr isn’t much. They take some pre cooked meals for freezer, and have food shop arrive whilst they are there to help put away

The 3hr away family need to see if they can go up and help. Maybe they help more with online shop, and looking up other local help. And consider can go down for a weekend?

Talk to AgeUK- in some hospitals they have a 'hospital to home' service. They go in (free of charge) once a week to do the shopping, help with laundry etc. It is a fantastic service!

In my experience the short term care packages post discharge from hospital - often termed reablement or Discharge to Assess, generally provided by NHS or local authority, won't do laundry or housework beyond washing up that day's dishes. They might pop the sheets in the machine if for example there was an issue with continence but they wouldn't stick around to hang up/dry it. You'd need a private carer or cleaner for that.

The NHS appointed carers will probably only do personal care and perhaps cooking a meal and helping her eat it (if there is time). Find out exactly what her care plan will cover. Then you have two choices;

either point out to the hospital it won't be enough; that she has no food in the house and no way of getting it, or of washing up etc. in which case she will have to stay put or go into a home for a while.

Or she/you can employ a different care company to do cleaning, tidying, laundry and shopping. Not all care companies do these sorts of tasks and it'll likely be those that have a high proportion of privately-funded clients. There are also some companies that actually only do these tasks and stop short of providing personal care.

On a practical note all these things would help:
paper plates and disposable cutlery,
meals on wheels,
ready meals delivered or from supermarket, (eat straight out of the tray to save washing up.
Supermarket grocery delivery - the Tesco and Sainsburys drivers will help put stuff away for disabled customers and you can set up an account for her and do the weekly shop.
Service wash at launderette may be cheaper than paying carers to do it and sometimes there are even people who will collect and deliver.

You could also look into meals on wheels (chargeable) provided by your city council. In my area they will deliver a hot lunch including hot dessert & a cold plated tea. Or just the midday meal if that's what they prefer.

Is her package a reablement package or a long term care package ?

Can you up the cleaner to weekly visits and order shopping online for delivery when the cleaner is there? If the cleaner can’t also take on laundry then a laundry collection and delivery service might be useful.

how often can family get there - can the closer person stock the freezer and fridge fortnightly? Whilst not everything has a long shelf life, the carers will only heat a micro meal, pour cereal or make a sandwich typically. Bread freezes well, apples are longer life than most fruit, she can have ambient snacks where she can reach them

Shopping and laundry are not personal care responsibilities so she either needs a cleaner who is willing to do this work or yes family do it. Where there is no family a home help is needed but it’s chargeable