To think pay in care homes is scandalous

[Clappingforjoy]

I've worked in then and got out of it. Understaffed rushed off your feet. Rude management and simply unable to give the elderly the care they deserve.

NHS Continuing Care funding is like rocking horse shit. Hardly anyone gets it and those who do have to fight tooth and nail for it. I imagine technically my mum qualified but I was too exhausted and ground down by then to even explore it.

We are going through an application for it right now. I'm in the mood for a fight though! We've been told they've "accepted" the application, but we're not quite sure what that means. A month ago, they were supposed to be sending an assessor out - no one's arrived yet though.

I hope you succeed. Common sense tells me it would be ludicrous if you didn’t but that’s a commodity in very short supply these days.

@Frequency
I don't know what the answer is but I do know the care industry cannot carry on as it is.
The idea of a right to leave or receive inheritance needs to change, even without the needs of the care industry wealth needs to be redistributed instead of hoarded.

I disagree. If I live my prudently, I should be able to leave an inheritance - not have my wealth redistributed as you phrase it. By the time I stop working, I’ll have spent 60 years working. Quite probably I’ll be charged £1000 a week and share a room with someone who has never worked a day in their life, frittered away benefits and whose is being financed by the LA (with the profit margin built into my own fees). When the government ends generational dependence on benefits and introduces a benefits card like Australia and work for the dole, then maybe just maybe we can start talking about wealth redistribution.

I’m confident that there are decent homes out there, they’re just outnumbered by the awful ones. I wish there was a Not For Profit approach because there’s elderly stuck in hospital beds (impacting the health service and their own mental health), there’s a lack of good homes and there’s a sector of workers who are being screwed over on their wages. I hope there’s a better way, I’m just not in the industry myself so can’t offer any intelligent insight into how to solve it

Most residential homes that don't have nurses (and many that do) use monitored dosage systems where meds come in dosette boxes already measured out.

Not all medication can be put in dosette or medication administration boxes. Some have to be kept in the original containers to avoid moisture, and of course they are not suitable for liquid medications. Warfarin doses can change very frequently so warfarin is often kept out of such systems. Residents newly coming into the home may not have their medication in such a system at first, similarly those coming back to the home following a hospital stay may have new medications not in the system. Some residents with swallowing difficulties may have a lot of medications to take, all in liquid form. It’s not quite as simple as you are suggestion, and there is a lot of scope for overworked under trained staff to make mistakes in administering medication.

Common sense tells me it would be ludicrous if you didn’t
They'll almost certainly find a way of wriggling out of it. I suspect they will hone in on the fact that his 24/7 care (bed-bound, doubly incontinent, needs checking every 20 mins, 2+ people to re-position and change him, was needing to be fed until he stopped eating a couple of days ago) has been covered by care staff, not actual nurses.
A friend who's a community nurse thinks (on her experience) it sounds like he should qualify but we're not holding our breath.

@QueenoftheNowhereverse, you won’t be sharing a room. That barbaric practice stopped a long time ago in any but the shittiest of homes. I didn’t see it once when I was looking. Neither will you be subsiding the people you sneer at and look down on if you choose a home that accepts only self funders.

Many people who have worked all their lives have no assets in retirement, simply because they’ve never earned enough to accumulate any.

" hope by that point hes built himself a stable place to live with his family and has his own assets"

Unlikely if he was one of the care workers we have been talking about They are someones family too.

@QueenoftheNowhereverse You are fucking vile.

Unlikely if he was one of the care workers we have been talking about They are someones family too.

True he may not have assets but will hopefully have a stable home and career. I come from a long line of people with fuck all in the way of assets or wealth, I know what it's like to live with literally nothing in the cupboards, I think that's why expecting an inheritance is so foreign to me. I didn't earn it therefore I should t expect it.

@QueenoftheNowhereverse If someone was doing "work for the dole" in a care home they could end up caring for you.

Be careful what you wish for.

A lot of people wont have accumalated wealth because they are care workers supermarket workers. hospital cleaners. Perhaps if there is a general strike it might focus some minds.

Fishbiscuits

I'm well aware of the intricacies of medication having administered it as both a carer and now a nurse. Point is if you can follow instructionss you can dispense meds. Yes mistakes happen (very often from distraction rather than lack of knowledge) but every care home and home care agency I worked with (and it was a few) had at least a MAR sheet and nearly always a monitored dosage system in place for their meds... although I accept my experience is not universal.

Formerly i agree. If someone is able to use an asset like the family home to pay for care then that is what it should be used for. Its not always greedy kids though I think my parents SHOULD use their home in this way Its THEM who wont want to.

here have you ever privately rented with a family in the UK? If you had, you'd soon realise exactly why people stretch themselves, often dangerously, to buy their own home. There is NO security in private renting in the UK, it's humiliating AF (inspections, letting agents coming in to do viewings if the LL is selling, some LLs coming in themselves, all sorts), expensive beyond belief (fees, fees and more fees), you're usually never more than 2 months from having to find another place to live, plenty of lets will not allow children, you probably won't be able to have pets, you usually cannot decorate but also often enough you can't even hang a fucking picture on a wall.

but if I have any wealth at all when it comes to it I'll be paying for a one way ticket to Dignitas.

There is a lot of myth on this thread about Dignitas.

They will NOT take dementia patients. You MUST prove you are terminally ill to use their services.

All this 'I'll trot off to Switzerland', no, you won't. This is why you are better off lobbying and campaigning for legalised end of life options for everyone. Read The Peaceful Pill Handbook, join Exit International if you truly believe in the right to end your own life rather than face penury in elder years. Or at all.

It's an inconvenient truth, but too many and more and more people are living too long with increasingly catastrophic health and care needs and it will become a crisis.

By the time I stop working, I’ll have spent 60 years working. Quite probably I’ll be charged £1000 a week and share a room with someone who has never worked a day in their life, frittered away benefits and whose is being financed by the LA (with the profit margin built into my own fees). When the government ends generational dependence on benefits and introduces a benefits card like Australia and work for the dole, then maybe just maybe we can start talking about wealth redistribution

I too will have worked 60 plus years by the time I am eligible for retirement. If I am unfortunate enough to need social care when I'm old enough then I'll be in a state funded place as I don't earn enough to save or buy a home despite working full time since I left my abusive parent's home at the age of 16 and part-time from the age of 14.

I've been working today, in fact, on a Saturday, since 6am this morning. I've gotten people out of bed who are unable to weight bear, I've showered people, dried people, dressed people. I've curled hair, straightened hair and combed hair. I've taken people to the hairdressers to have their hair washed and set. I've changed pads, made meals, collected meals from the local cafe, hunted down a resident who forgot to eat the lunch he paid for in the local cafe, dealt with an aggressive family member, vacuumed carpets, washed pots and found a lost set of teeth. I did manage to get a lunch break today because one resident cancelled their lunch call so it didn't matter that I spent the better part of my break hunting down the aforementioned resident who forgot to eat his lunch.

And if all of that means I'm unworthy to share space in a care home with you because I didn't continue in education and couldn't earn as much as you then frankly, I don't care. I don't think I'd want to spend my twilight years in the company of someone so small minded anyway.

Wrt medication, not all of it comes in dosette boxes. We try to get it in dosette boxes but as mentioned liquid meds cannot be in dosette boxes. Antibiotics are rarely in dosette boxes unless they're prescribed long term. As and when needed medications such as codeine, paracetamol, morphine and laxatives are not in dosette boxes. It's usually just a case of reading the MAR chart and counting the meds given against the meds listed but sometimes you get a new resident or a resident's medication changes and carers are responsible for creating a MAR chart or updating one. Mistakes happen but not often and they're usually down to an inexperienced carer not paying enough attention. Inexperienced carers, where I work at least, are not given the residents with complex medications, so mistakes are minimal and often harmless things like forgetting to offer paracetamol or not signing the right box on the MAR chart. They're quickly picked up on buy a more experienced carer in later calls. Yes, if we overdose someone and cause death we would be charged with manslaughter but the same is true of nurses. I do think the medication training given to carers needs to be more in-depth. I don't like that I don't know what half of what I give out is for. We can't give anything not prescribed, not even OTC medications and we can't apply creams not prescribed.

Given the current retirement age is 68 how are people working 60+ years before they get to it?

I'm predicting it will go up before I reach it, Formerly. I'm also predicting, like many of the hardworking carers I work with over the retirement age, I won't be able to afford to fully retire and will probably go part-time. I hope I'm wrong but I'd rather prepare myself to work until I am physically unable to than be disappointed when it happens.

Fair enough. I too envisage working beyond retirement, mainly because I actually enjoy working and having a routine but I will hopefully be lucky enough to do this through choice rather than necessity.

I also read that the average length of residency for people in care homes is relatively low. Under 12 months???? Again, can anyone verify?

A solicitor specialising in this field told us (on a CPD course) that people live on average 4 years in a residential home and 18 months in a nursing home.

It is possible to get CHC funding for dementia, as my cousin did for his mother - he works in a firm of solicitors.

IMO, care funding represents a 100% tax on the 1 in 4 who end up needing it; and that is unfair. Also, a considerable proportion of adult social care expenditure goes on adults of working age - who by virtue of being disabled, are unlikely to ever to be able to afford a house.

I havent read through the full thread yet but i work for a large chain nursing home company.

Yes the pay is shite £8.15 for nights which is what i do. They charge from £1000 a week and dont take funding with the exception of CHC its a large 80 bed home spilt into 4 floors each one being a seperate unit.

we do have enough staff most of the time. The activities are the best ive ever come across regular days out everyweek even twice a week. There is something to do everyday and numerous clubs ie book club, gardening club, chess club then art classes. Along with a salon with different therpys running each week along with hair cuts ect. The food is all fresh and prepped fresh each day.

Management listen to us and value us as staff its a lovely place to work and the residents are well looked after.

I know this is rare and even though they class them selfs as a "superior" care home the pay is awful but still wouldnt change my job anywhere else. It's part and parcel of doing care.

FormerlyFrikadellka I have also been working in care for many years, and qualified as a nurse. There is a difference between dispensing medication and administering it, carers are not allowed to dispense but nurses are, meaning carers should only be giving medication from boxes and containers etc which have been specifically prescribed for that individual and labelled as such. Yes, the vast majority of care homes use mar administration systems, but I would dispute that to administer medication well you you only need to be able to follow instructions. I have seen many errors of administration in care homes, most minor, but the worst of which (some years ago) involved a resident dying because staff did not realise that the medication they had received from the pharmacy was not in fact antibiotics for her chest infection, but another medication she had been prescribed previously, which had been awaiting collection. By the time the mistake was realised it was too late. Yes, staff should be checking medications they are not familiar with with a BNF or similar, but realistically in the vast majority of care homes they do not have the time to be looking up each and every medication they administer, and they should therefore be familiar with commonly prescribed medications, side effects, interactions. All of which takes more than 20 minutes, at least if you want to do it well.

@timshelthechoice dignitas DO accept dementia patients.

Yes I've private rented. I admit I was probably exaggerating when I said people wouldn't bother to buy their own homes (if they're lucky enough to have the income to save/have a good credit in the first place).

Ishitglitter, I wonder if you work for the chain of homes that run my dad's fab place. The broad range of activities sold it to us initially.

Very strict criteria, here. Their range of service is actually quite narrow, for good reason. It's also over £10,000 and you have to go entirely alone because anyone who so much as drives you to the airport can face criminal charges.

I can't think of anyone who would live life private renting to avoid selling a home for care home fees because private renting is utterly shit in this country, particularly if you have children.