To ask anyone with care home experience to advise.

[carehomeworry]

Went to see my aunt today who is staying is a care home, she lives 200 miles from me so I do not get to see her very often, she has MS and is wheelchair bound. She can feed herself (as long as things are cut up) she is very proud of her appearance and can brush her own hair and apply make up etc etc.

Her DH (her carer) has recently been taken into hospital where he will need to be for several months.

They managed to find her a place near her dh, but after visited today, she told me some stories that have upset me.

With her worrying about her dh her IBS has kicked in big time, and she often buzzes and has to wait 30-60 mins before someone responds to the buzzer, and for someone who has always been able to use the loo when she wants to have to sit in her "accident" for that long I think is disgraceful.

They also came to collect her dinner tray only to be told by my aunt that she has not even had it yet, on at least 2 occasions she has asked for her pain killers (in agony from the hoist) only to be told that according to the records she had them an hour ago (her legs might not work but her brain/memory is sharp).

She is used to a daily bath but here she is only allowed one a week.

She doesn't want to complain as things will get worse, she says the majority of the staff are lovely when they get to her, and says this is the norm for places like this.

From your experience is she right?

No. Unacceptable. This is now her home. Very common for residents to be "rota'd" once a week for a bath, they can however ask to be bathed whenever she wants. Three times a day if they want. Thems the rules.

All very worrying indeed. It is not acceptable for the call bell to not be answered for an hour. It is not acceptable for anyone to be left in their mess for any length of time. It is not acceptable for them to forget to give her a meal. It is not acceptable for her not to have a daily bath if that is what she wants.

It is awful that she is going through this and you need to complain and move her. Like you say, it may well get worse as the 'care' staff clearly do not care and so may take ny complaint out on her.

It is absolutely NOT the norm for a place like that, speaking as someone who has worked in many of them.

Your poor aunt. That seems a long time to wait if she has had an accident. Can your aunt wheel herself to the loo? The problem is that it takes 2 carers to take someone to the loo or clean them after an accident, and they will be busy with others as well. The dinner tray is unacceptable. Can your aunt not eat with the others in the dining room? Painkillers should be given regularly and your aunt should not be in pain. In my Mum's care home there is a rota for baths, only one a week I think. Again that is because of the time it would take if all bathed daily. Is there any other family nearer that could check up on your aunt more regularly? Look up the care home on www.carehome.co.uk/ and see if there are any reviews or inspection reports. I feel sorry for her because it must be a dreadful shock for her.

no its not acceptable. things like this make my blood boil - please complain. But until caring roles are treated as important vocations and training and pay is better, rather than in many instances being seen as unskilled work at the bottom end of the scale, and being taken by those who dont really want to do the job, I feel we will see more and more of this sort of story of neglect/abuse coming to light.

Thanks for your replies.

Glad its not the norm, luckily she has a lot of friends so will have plenty of visitors, will speak to them and ensure something is done. Thanks again

That is not ok, I used to work in a care home (people with learning difficulties and mental health needs). As someone mentioned service users can have a bath when ever they like as long as the right amount of people are their to assist them.

Requests for assistance should be answered immediately, if the request is non urgent and can't be met immediately it should be explained how soon someone will be able to help. Requests for help using the toilet though is urgent and should be treated as such. Non urgent requests might be things like helping someone put make up on when a person might be asked to wait a short amount of time while another person is helped with something more urgent (like having a bath).

They should know when she has had her medication and meals. Those are serious issues, real duty of care important stuff that needs to be done and documented correctly.

Not everywhere is like this, a staff member was disciplined where I worked for not getting someone to the toilet promptly. I believe it was a very short delay, making the choice to get her home to the toilet rather than trying to find a public toilet when they were only a short way from home.

The service user had an accident and was distressed. The staff member was trying to make the best decision at the time with the information she had available but was still disciplined because you never make someone wait to use the toilet if they request it.

If the staff are lovely when they deal with her and generally caring it sounds like they are short staffed. It is no excuse, there are legal minimum staffing levels that should be adhered to. I wouldn't be surprised if they have less staff on than they are supposed to.

this is absolutely standard.

my mum is in a [famous name] nursing home a mile from where we live, visited twice daily by my dad with some help from me.

her buzzer is ignored, unplugged, or left out of her reach. my mum can only move one arm and can't sit herself up. her voice is weak so calling for help can be ignored too. and, they close the doors from the bedrooms to the lounge, with the television on loudly, so they definitely won't hear any of the bed-bound calling.

my mother is often left without a drink between our visits. sometimes they 'forget' to bring her food and often they bring food they know she cannot or will not eat (she has difficulty swallowing). one sunday, they didn't bring her a single meal or drink and if we hadn't been in to visit, she'd have been left 24 hours or more like that.

they tried to lcp her when she arrived. the hospital had tried it twice but the government changes meant they had to give her some water and she survived their second attempt. so the home tried right away, as soon as she arrived. my mother's 'key' nurse told my father she had access to enough drugs to 'make the end swift' for my mother at any time. the same woman spoke with me when my mother was close to death and it was obvious that she gained real pleasure from the idea of people dying.

your aunt is lucky if the majority of the staff are lovely. they most certainly aren't lovely (two of them are, that's all) where my mum is.

and this is the best nursing home within miles!

Yes it is utterly, utterly standard - and it is disgusting.

I think you can submit an anonymous request for an investigation (either a prod or a full blown complaint) to the Social Care Dept (or version of it) at your local council.

It is really not okay, thank christ the staff are at least pleasant.

It is not standard at all, nurse call buzzers are treated with paramount importance, if my team were to leave a buzzer going for 30 minutes we'd expect to be sacked! My advice is to take this up with the manager of this care home and if not taken seriously contact safeguarding. Please dont let this mar your judgement on carehomes as a whole as we do not all deserve to be judged by other peoples standards.

It's not standard, it's not acceptable and it needs dealing with. Op your position is less bad so I would suggest starting with the manager to see if things can be improved and work from there. .

Others on here who's relatives are being abused should contact the cqc and discuss their experiences.

Sadly not everyone who works in care should and it can be difficult to tell who is bad at their job, who simply doesn't care and who really tries their best but is not properly enabled to do their job. Luckily you don't have to as that is the cqcs job. Let them deal with it!

Hi OP, you need to speak directly to the care home, and if she was placed there with help from your local authority, you need to contact them first thing in the morning, as this could come under safeguarding, and is taken very seriously. You can also contact the care quality commission too and ask them to investigate.

If you know your relatives are being neglected please please inform the cqc. rabbitlady - you must report this home.

It is much more common than those working in the profession like to realise.

Par for the course I'm afraid. Unacceptable for sure. I was a nurse for 26 years. A district nurse for 10 years. My final 4 yrs I spent working in a private nursing home. I worked days and nights and we were perpetually understaffed and care was sub-standard. We did the best we could with the resources to hand but, it was the final nail in the coffin for me. I left nursing altogether after "whistle blowing" and it was the worst 18 months of my career. I was ostracised and worked under dreadful pressure.

I'm so sorry to hear about your aunt. We need to make massive changes in care provision. Will we? Can we afford it financially? No, probably not.

It would be wonderful if we were able to rely upon the CQC to sort out malpractice within the care sector, wouldn't it?

As a care manager - I agree with the majority of what has been said by PPs.

My advice is simply to call your aunt's social worker and have a chat about these issues.

If the standard of care doesn't improve, lodge a formal complaint through Social Services. If this still doesn't help then escalate it and report to the CQC and threaten media attention

Totally unacceptable. I would definitely put in a formal complaint if things don't improve after that then the CQC as others have said is the way forward. Is there nowhere else locally she could go?

Jock it would certainly be more likely if people actually reported instead of saying it's usual and doing nothing. The cqc need information to act and the more reports about a problem the more likely it is to lead to change.

Jock it would certainly be more likely if people actually reported instead of saying it's usual and doing nothing.

Yes. Because that's exactly what people have suggested. Whinging and doing nothing. Why is it always the fault of the family?

Seriously, THIS IS NOT STANDARD!! Do not believe that it is and do not accept it being normal! That is how the few (yes few) bad homes survive!!

I would not have continued to work somewhere like that and would have reported it and then left. I have worked in homes with very high standards of care, that I have been proud to say I worked in! I would put my own relative in and be happy about it.

I say it again THIS IS NOT STANDARD!

Standard and acceptable aren't the same thing. Just because it isn't okay doesn't mean it's not common. It happens far, far too frequently for it to be bad luck.

Hmm, I have a lot of care experience, in a lot of different homes. I did agency work and was sent to a new place every day. So I do know what I am talking about. It is not standard. There will be a better home somewhere for her to be moved to.

Hmm.

Hmm, so is this something you actually have experience of olidusUrsus or are you just using a load of media misconceptions to scare people? Actually, not even that, just vague shit so far.

Yes, it is something I have experience of. There is often an attitude in care homes that if you have concerns about a loved one who happens to live there then you must not understand the system or you're over thinking things or you're seeking to make things awkward.

I think I'll step away now because it's hitting a raw nerve actually. Best of luck with it OP. Definitely contact council/CQC.