AIBU to think that a Carer for a lady with Dementia

[ModreB]

Should not take money off of her for lunch on a trip out.

My Aunt has vascular dementia, she also has a Learning Disability and a significant Physical Disability that means she is in a wheelchair. She currently lives in a nursing home. She still has some insight, but even before the dementia began, she had a mental age of about 10yo.

Today she went out shopping at the Xmas market with a Carer, employed by the nursing home. She had £40 to spend. She came back with a pack of Xmas cards that cost £6, a small vase (Dont know how much that cost as no receipt) and no money. Apparently they had lunch, and she paid for the Carer's lunch as well as her own.

I thought that the Carer would have had an allowance or something to get lunch, not expect my Aunt to buy it. My DM doesn't want to "Cause Waves" so will not report it, but AIBU to report this anyway?

I would ask the manager

I worked in a care home, all the service users had meals provided for them but if they wanted to eat out they paid for that with their money.

A drink or meal for staff members though was paid for with petty cash, never the service users money. Sometimes service users wanted to buy meals/drinks for the staff but we politely refused.

One particular man always wanted to buy things for staff members, it was important to him to feel he had paid he became upset if he didn't. We always used to let him believe he had brought us lunch and thank him for it but it was still always paid with from petty cash and never his money.

His family though were aware of his preference to believe he had paid and that staff would never have been paid for out his money. If there had have been a concern raised we would have had copies of the receipts to show them.

Receipts had to be provided for everything, it was very important and we would have been in trouble if we didn't present receipts when we got back.

Sorry posted too soon.

Speak to the manager in the home, because it seems odd that a carer could take a resident out with that amount of monet ans not have to justify.how it was spent.

Does your aunt keep.her own money or is it in a safe in the home? I wonder if the carer signed the money back ib (for example) and your aunt was unaware. Either way, your aunt.should NOT be paying for a carers lunch out.

I'm a support worker for adults with learning disabilities, when we go out for meals with the people we support they pay for our meals but this is only when we go on 1-to-1s with them and only if they have the mental capacity to agree to it. When I previously worked in a different home with people who didn't have the mental capacity to agree to it they did not pay for our meals.

Oh, and it doesn't come out of their personal funds either - it comes out of the pooled money that they both pay into, that gets used to pay for bills, food etc.

Why are the clients paying for a carers meal. ? How odd. Take a packed lunch or do they want to whizz clients round tescos to buy the sandwiches first

I would query it. However, we used to employ Carers for my grandad, and if one took him out for lunch I would absolutely expect, as the client, to pay for the carer's food.

If your aunt wanted to eat lunch out, and required accompaniment, why should the carer spend their own money to facilitate this? Whoever said take a packed lunch - tried taking a pack up into a cafe and eating it there lately, have you??

I would be very surprised if the career could claim it back. I've always understood that where the career incurs costs in taking the cared for person to an activity etc then the career shouldn't have to be out of pocket. Eg you may look on it as a nice lunch put with your aunt but the carer may have wanted to make a sandwich and not spend money.

However they should be able to provide a reciept for everything. That worries me.

I agree with Rhonda, the people I support also pay for any travel costs we incur when taking them out on a 1-to-1, but we absolutely have to keep receipts for everything we buy and the manager checks over them monthly to keep an eye out for financial abuse.

I'd be very concerned that she hadn't kept the receipts, that is standard practice.

Hopefully you inheritance is safe

I've never heard of the client paying for the meal for a support worker as part of the contract .

Would OP's aunt be expected to pay for the support workers meal if they were in the home and had not gone shopping etc?

How can the support worker not have the receipts even for the client's meal? There is something very wrong.

Please OP speak to the care home manager and if your aunt has a social worker/ care manager please inform them.

There should be receipts for all purchases - i used to take a client to do the weekly food shopping and the dude on the veg stall at the market would write on a paper bag for us! Otherwise, my wages might be docked as, technically, I'd stolen the money due to no evidence.

I would be querying this very fast, and I'd want to see your Aunt's financial records. Go in and ask, give no notice - these should be easily accessible, if not that's a red flag.

Words to use: gross misconduct, financial abuse, theft, Protection of Vulnerable Adults policy, Social Services, Care Quality Commission

This is, potentially, serious. If nothing else, the carer needs immediate retraining so she knows where appropriate boundaries are

Agree 100% purple

When DS had a personal assistant through Direct Payments, we had to cover off the PAs expenses - so if the activity was to take him to the cinema, then we had to pay the carer's ticket, if it was a meal, we had to pay the PAs meal.

TBH that seems reasonable - if a carer (usually on NMW) has to accompany someone for a meal etc, then they would be unlikely to afford it on a regular basis which would mean that the service user would not get the social opportunity.

My DM was there when they got back. While she was unpacking Aunts shopping, she asked her what else she had bought other than the cards and the vase, bearing in mind she had taken £40 out with her. Aunt replied "We had bratwurst and a cup of tea as we went round the market. I paid for bratwurst and tea", so we're not talking a sit down meal in a restaurant or cafe. DM said that the vase looked like it was tat (But Aunt likes tat )

Aunt likes to keep hold of her own purse and money, her purse was empty, not even any loose change.

What has happened in the past is that the receipts are put in the bag with what she had bought, and any food receipts in the purse, along with the money that is left over and it goes into a small safe box in Aunts room. Aunt has an allowance each week, pocket money if you like, that she can spend as she chooses when they go out shopping, or on trips etc. Because the LA are responsible along with my DM for her money, even when she goes out with my DM, receipts are kept.

I will ring the nursing home on Monday and speak to the person in charge. Not in a horrible way, but just as a concern.

When I worked for a care service , there was a fund to pay for the support workers expenses, like coffee out, entry to bowling etc, but local authorise are screwing care providers rates into the ground - some are even using reverse auctions - so a few years ago the policy changed so that the person getting care paid.

The result of this is the increase in people walking aimlessly round shopping malls with their carer, instead of doing something more useful, like swimming, because of the cost. Makes me furious.

Sorry - local authorities.

Not even any loose change. That is very worrying indeed. There will be a policy and she should have followed it to the letter. No receipts, no change.

It's definitely a call to the care home to find out policy. It seems reasonable to pay for carer's lunch - part of the carer's job is to be friendly if not exactly friends I imagine. It would be strange for your aunt to eat alone, but the carer should not incur expense for this. Receipts surely must be part of it though? I would feel uncomfortable as the carer not having a paper record of all money spent-as much to protect myself. This could just be slack behaviour, in which case procedure needs tightening, or something worse, in which case it needs to be stopped.

May be a stupid question, but did anyone check your aunts pockets /handbag. Just in case she put the money / change in a pocket or tucked into a.handbag conpartment.

It doesn't sound too unusual that they wouldn't get a receipt for a bratwurst and a cup of tea whilst walking round a market.

Is your Aunt mentally healthy enough that she can be trusted to know what's happening to her own money? Has she shown concern that her purse came home empty?

It depends. Did your aunt buy her carer lunch? My elderly neighbour was telling me the other day that she always buys people lunch if they take her out, it's her way of saying thank you. She's also always trying to give me food. I get told off if I don't at least accept a biscuit but shes always offering me half her dinner too.

I work as a Support worker and i am meant to have meals and travel paid for by the people I look after. I pay for myself and on some shifts I am out of pocket by £30-£40 . That is per shift. I do 24 hour shifts at a time. What am i meant to do if i can't afford to pay that money? Go home? Sorry can't do that as we have to stay on the premises for the whole 24hours.
We don't even get minimum wage so paying for my own travel and meals is too expensive. My care agency pay no expenses at all and even when I was working a 55hour week I still earned less than £1000 a month.
If it helps I feel terrible if I ever have to eat in the customers home so often I go 24 hours without food (and sleep)
We are never allowed to have more than £5 for lunch if we go out for a 1-1 so if the person i'm with eats somewhere expensive we have the choice of just having a drink or paying for ourselves.
I would speak to the management and find out the rules at that care setting in this situation
Sorry for the ramble but this upsets me so much. Most of the people that work in caring professions do their work as they do care. We support people to have great lives (often at tthe expense of our own families).

dameEnid

Get your son a ces card,you can pick up the application from the cinema, it entitles any disabled person to take a carer to the pictures with them and the carer gets in free.

The card costs five pounds and needs a photo.

I am also a support worker who works with people with learning disabilities. When supporting outside of the home the service users are liable for both our expenses these include travel, meals and activities. However I have to ensure that every penny is accounted for.

Not every relative has the right to see financial information usually only those with power of attorney/appointee have this right.

It is true regarding local authorities cutting contract funding, very soon service users are going to be assessed as most are in receipt of DLA which ultimately means that money will be cut.
Your Aunt at the very least should have a risk assessment and support plan regarding finances to protect everyone involved, finances should be regularly audited.
Good luck x