Are carers taking the piss?

[londewy123]

Hi all, I'd really appreciate some advice for others who might have been through the same situation.

My retired parents have hired carers to come to their house 3 times a day, 7 days a week for 1 hour per visit recently- they hired them within the last month.

Dad has (3 days ago) been diagnosed with vascular dementia and my mum has had servere, demolishing depression for 4 years.

Dad doesn't really want carers but needs them to prepare meals, wash up and do basic things like take out the bins.

My concern is recently I've been off work to take dad to appointments and if i randomly come in the house:

X The carers aren't wearing PPE at all!
X They're late by 30 minutes to an hour for their start time- no call or explanation!
X the carers don't seem to do abything; don't engage with parents, house is a shit heap, no washing has been done, floor really obviously dirty, fridge empty almost as if a carer hasn't even been in, let alone three in any 24 hour period!! 7 days a week!! I went in today randomly and the fridge was full of empty food packets. Nothing had been done.

It's heart breaking. I can't afford to give up my job (my own family depend on it).

Should I complain to the carer company? Am I expecting too much?! Wtf, this is the first really experience I've had with carers.

My parents are paying £25,400 PER YEAR for carers to come in 3 times a day, every day per year.

Am I being unreasonable to think they should wear PPE, actually mop the floor, wash clothes? Ensure fridge is semi full of food?
It's so depressing to feel my parents are being taken advantage of.

I work full time and am there when I can be,, hence why we've employed carers!!

Carers are not cleaners but should wear full ppe and wipe down surfaces where they have been.

Dad doesn't really want carers but needs them to prepare meals, wash up and do basic things like take out the bins.

I think this is the problem. Carers won't do things for clients if they decline. It can be encouraged but it can't be enforced! It takes time to build up a relationship with a clients.

Carers can't just come into people's houses and start doing what they or you think needs doing! Carers follow a Care plan. They will usually report back to managers if they think a support call is needed for shopping or housework or if they feel Care plans need reviewing etc but it is important to remember that a central part of care is for people to maintain their independence.

I would set up a meeting with the Care manager with your parents as this clearly isn't working at present.

Please don't tarnish us all with the same brush. The company I work for does everything from shopping and cleaning to full personal care. Even social calls to take people out of just sit and do something with them for a few hours. We are required to wear full PPE at every call with random spot checks on us to make sure we are wearing it. Non of us like being late for a call but sometimes an incident at a previous call or busy traffic or no travel time between calls that are opposite ends of the town means we can run 15-20 minutes late I had a bump in between calls which put me massively behind but I'll work into one of breaks if necessary and the extra time on a call we aren't paid for it. Diary notes should be kept for every call. Not only does it help the next Carer in because they can see what sort of a morning/ night the SU has had they should be printed off and filed in the office. Is it not just the case that the carers are asking your parents if they need anything doing and they're just saying no? I know one of my SU if we can manage to get a cloth from the cupboard or the hoover out the room we've achieved something because she just won't let us do anything even though it's written in the care plan. As for the hourly fee. We get a poxy cut out of that. Half the time I can't afford to feed myself or put diesel in my car. It's sad to think not so long ago we were some of the most appreciated people around yet some people now think we're the worst people even though we have risked our lives daily working constantly throughout Covid. Because of my job I took the decision to stop going to see my Grandma in March because I didn't want to risk passing anything on to her. She died in August before I had the chance to go and see her again

I have carers daily due to physical illness. A care agency did not suit my needs. They usually don’t offer cleaning apart from the kitchen area if providing food, carers rarely turn up at a set time of day as they are going from house to house and the agency squeezes as many hours in as possible for the staff. Also it’s harder to build up a relationship as many agencies can’t offer the same carers daily. Finally, they are much more expensive than employing a carer directly as the agency take a large cut. The care staff themselves often only get minimum wage. Most of the carers were fine but they had such little flexibility.

I use the direct payments scheme where the council pay money directly to me to employ carers directly. (My financial assessment means I pay half towards to it). There is much more flexibility on what a carer can do when you employ them directly and the hourly rate is much lower. I get £11.50/hr from the council, a pound of which is kept back to cover holiday pay. Agencies charge a much higher rate. By my calculation your parents are paying around £23 per hr.

You can have a direct payments package set up even if you are assessed as having to pay for it all due to having savings over the threshold etc. The disadvantage is you are responsible for employing the person which with your parents they obviously could not do, but they can nominate you to be responsible for it. There is very little work involved in acting as the employer as my council use an organisation (costs nothing extra to me) to do the payroll, set up contracts and help with recruitment. The work involved for me now it is all set up is to email my carers’ hours once a month to the payroll (and if they are on set hrs with no mileage it could be set up automatically) and send a copy of my bank account statements every six months to the council’s finance department which is used only for my direct care payments and paying my carer’s wages. I also once a month transfer online my carers wages from my direct payments bank account to their bank accounts. So this may be something you would like to consider. As your parents need a carer to come in 3 times a day for an hour it might be harder to find someone who is able to such a working pattern but not impossible. Anyway direct payments might be something you could consider. I am sorry the care your parents are receiving currently does not meet their needs.

@Lozz22, when I had to use an agency I had some lovely carers. They work v hard and I know get paid v little. My problems with the care agencies were rarely the carers themselves (you do a great job and are paid far too little) but the system itself didn’t meet my needs.

Finally, I forgot to mention PPE. I agree carers should be wearing it. I provide it due to me employing them directly. Both my carers I have had for a very long time and they are wonderful.

I voted YABU...Only because Carers are not maids. They provide ADLs. Activities of daily living and medicine supervision. An hour is not enough time to do all that. Even 3 times a day.

@felineflutter
Yes. You can only encourage them, it's person centered care, if they decline care or don't want help, you can't override their feelings. If they have control it's so important to listen to the client and not overstep boundaries. You have to ask them permission to help, every client is individual.

As others have said really.

Direct payments is a way around it but it can be absolutely fraught with difficulties. Recruitment can prove difficult too.

Hello OP! I was a carer once, I'd never be able to do it again. I found it heartbreaking. I was given a daily sheet with a list of addresses stating where I would need to be and at what time. I was paid only for the time I was inside the clients house (which was for between 15 mins to an hour depending on what had been agreed with the company and the person who arranged the carer). Was not paid at all for any driving time, which was the majority of my day, and found that the driving time given to me between appointments was nowhere near long enough to get to the actual addresses, so I found lateness to be a problem which I hated and felt awful about. We were literally allowed to do only what was on their care plan and no more. So if the house was a tip but we were there just to administer medicine with a 15 minute time slot, there was nothing we could do. Even if we were there for longer, if cleaning was not on the care plan (and it never was) we weren't to do it. My company were quite intense about this - we were made to feel that if we did any more than we were supposed to, we would be considered to be trying to sweeten them up to get written into their wills or something and that this was a sackable offense. They SHOULD be wearing PPE, but other than that, I think I can understand them. Caring is a horrible job, I went home sobbing every day as I had wanted to really help people and spend time with lonely people who didn't have company but it was nothing like that. No time for being actually 'caring' and if isn't on the careplan it isn't allowed anyway. The carers will probably be being hiderously underpaid, too.

@boydoggies

Your parents may benefit from a live in carer to support them. Probably wouldn't cost much different.

We had to arrange temporary live in care for my Mother in Law recently. It was £1600 a week and that is pretty much the going rate. It is also incredibly intrusive - my PiL hated having someone in the house 24/7.

It sounds as though your parents need support to work with the care agency to determine what they really need. 3 x1 hour calls a day sounds excessive. I am an Older Peoples Social Worker and would rarely commission that amount of care. An hour in the morning is reasonable but an hour at lunch or tea seems a lot.

As others have said, it sounds as though your parents need a cleaner. Also, your parents may be refusing to let the carers do things. My MiL wouldnt let the live in carer throw out out of date food.

As pp have said it sounds as if you need a cleaner and possibly one Carer for personal care.

You've plenty of good advice above. But to echo PPs absolutely complain about not using PPE, that should be standard. But in my (professional & personal) experience, carers will only do light cleaning of areas that they are using e.g. wiping down kitchen surfaces after making food and doing the dishes, a shopping service is usually a separate carer who will do this or take the individual out to the shops to help them do their shopping. Carers primarily do personal care, meals and companionship or "check in" calls to ensure that the individual is safe and settled. It sounds like your parents would be better suited to dropping their number of visits and employing a separate cleaner to come once a week :)

I have carers due to my mental health, it's just been upped so they come everyday. They do help me with cleaning and shopping, this is written into my care plan. Sometimes we just sit and talk if that's what I want/need. This week we played monopoly one day. I have one visit a day but I never know what time they are coming as things happen cars break down or people are sick. I think you do need to talk to them to find out what is on the care plan but as people have pointed out if they refuse the help then they cant do it but should flag any issues. My carers have a work phone which they check in and out on and also put what they have done, they can be tracked from that phone as well to make sure they are staying the required time.

@murkoff

As others have said really.

Direct payments is a way around it but it can be absolutely fraught with difficulties. Recruitment can prove difficult too.

@murkoff, may I ask what difficulties are feel involved with direct payments? As you may have read in my post above, I have a direct payments package and it works really well for me. It can take a bit of time initially during the recruitment process but other than that for me it is brilliant. However, I understand we are all different so wondering what you think the difficulties are? I do know it may be harder to find someone who is willing to do 3 visits spread across the day if that is their only job.

I don’t think you have a ‘carer/cleaner’ problem, as much as a ‘personal responsibility’ issue.

Two older parents, clear chronic-and-worsening health issues, left to research, manage and pay for ‘you have no idea’ home services?

How about this as a solution: hear their joint and individual desperation as a motivator for you (and any siblings) to act immediately. Spend some real time talking and listening to what their real needs are (weekly, weekends and holidays). Research appropriate, well-reviewed local services on their behalf (include all agency policies). Do their budget for them, negotiate with the best agencies to get their needs fulfilled. Be the point person for the services. Form relationships with the agency staff (asking for replacements if necessary), and build better processes, times and quality WITH their input. Visit often enough (during and outside service hours) to keep a real eye on things, so tweaks can happen easily and quickly.

Just leaving your parents to founder while occasionally running your white glove around the place was never going to cut it, was it?

I’m not saying leave your job to cook their every lunch yourself, but there’s a big gap between that scenario, and what you’re doing now.

Presumably these two people didn’t notice you had a dirty nappy and stand back wringing their hands helplessly, when you were little? They mucked in. Your turn.

Could you do an online shop and arrange it to be delivered when someone is there?

Girlzroolz's post isn't very diplomatic, but the advice in the third paragraph is spot on.
If (if!) you can find local, self-employed carers and cleaners you can get a lot more for your money. Agencies dedicate a lot of resources to making sure the carers don't develop a bond with the clients which might end up without the agency getting its cut.
Beware the typical nightmare dynamic where the clients' family doesn't really understand the care sector, sees their inheritance disappearing before their eyes and takes it out on the carers, who are already working for well below minimum wage and are often treated like dirt. That does nobody any good.

@Leaannb

I voted YABU...Only because Carers are not maids. They provide ADLs. Activities of daily living and medicine supervision. An hour is not enough time to do all that. Even 3 times a day.

Again - it depends on what’s been agreed with the care agency (if you’re private )

I've cleaned for many elderly people over the years who also have carers coming in. I have never known a carer clean or shop unless it's a private arrangement. Most agency carers are just that, carers and some are absolutely crap! Some very good, as is life.

As others have said I'd advertise for a private carer who will also do the shopping and maybe cleaning, or employ a cleaner/ shopper separately.

To cover 24/7 [Live in] would require a minimum of three carers

DD used to get 54 hours of domiciliary care a week, when she lived at home. The carers often talked to me about what work they did with other clients. They did help with shopping, laundry, cooking, washing up and taking out to social activities.

Now she lives in residential care with 1:1 care all her waking hours. (14 hours a day) They reckoned to recruit for her 3 carers, to cover a week. She gets 1:3 care at night - and the night staff are a different team to the day staff.

Guylan personally I found it really difficult being on the other side of it because it was a very blurred boundary between carer and friend (I’m sure you didn’t manage it like that, i know it can work brilliantly it’s just when I did it the person I was caring for was lovely but around my age and I was only about 23/24 at the time.)

I found the main problem with them being your employer is it’s just really awkward if something is proving difficult.

Not read all the thread

OP, I'd get CCTV. Let the carers know. Then you can keep an eye on everything.

An hour is enough if you rush.

I was asked by relatives NOT to rush. Treat her as a friend, laugh/chat and make her feel like a person. Some days we don't get much done but on a morning I will empty commode/make bed and quick cup wash up. After getting her dressed and washed I wouldn't have time to clean up with just an hour.

@HibiscusNell

Not read all the thread

OP, I'd get CCTV. Let the carers know. Then you can keep an eye on everything.

Or how about the OP returns to the thread and addresses the multiple questions that have been asked?

This is a privately funded arrangement.
Who initiated it? Who identified the care needs and what arrangements were made with regards the care interventions needed?
Who decided on the length of the calls and what specific tasks are the carers employed to do?
What other services are involved? Social workers? Community nursing? OT?