to think my aunt, in a care home, should be allowed more than one shower a week?

[LuluBlakey1]

My aunt is 92 and has been in a care home for 4 weeks for respite care. The fees are £1300 a week. It emerged this morning that residents are only bathed or showered once a week. She washes herself with a flannel and soap every day- no help is available for this.

I asked the question of the 'senior' on duty and was told it is all they can manage and there is a rota. Some residents have alzheimers/dementia and can be difficult and some have medical conditions so must have more baths/showers. In the month she has been there she has never had a bath- not enough time for that and has only had 4 showers.

I was horrified. I thought they must be short staffed but apparently not.

AIBU to think if you are paying £1300 a week for a care home, you should have the choice of a bath or shower every day?

My mum has a weekly shower and washed at night time .I am happy with that as she has dementia and doesn’t want a shower at all never mind every day !
let’s pay our carers properly ,get enough staff and look after our elders well but no government prioritise funding wars and high speed rails that don’t actually materialise.

I am in Scotland and would echo that once a week is pretty standard ime. However that’s still one more per week than MIL managed on her own. She wasn’t in the home for long, in a dementia ward, and DH requested that she be helped to shower, but the staff just nodded and nothing changed.

They really were very busy from what I could see and many patients needed multiple visits every day, for toileting, clean up, help with food etc.

£1300 per week may seem like a lot. But it’s less than £200 per day for bed, board, and physical care and assistance, and many of the residents will be paid for by the council at a lower rate for the same week, for the same load on staff resources- MIL was assessed at less than £300 per week plus her state pension as her contribution.

We really do need to do a better job of understanding the needs of the elderly and what we each need to do to provide for ourselves, and what we need to be prepared to sacrifice by way of taxes, to meet the needs of those vulnerable people who cannot pay those fees.

I am sorry for your aunts situation Op. It is heartbreaking witnessing the care system at close hand.

Sorry that was @Stanislas

When I was nursing on the wards in hospital (1988 - 2000) we showered or bathed every patient every day. Mind you we were better staffed in those days. The student nurses would each pair up with either each other or a HCA and would whizz around happily doing the showers (I bloody loved it!) We had it down to a fine art, and we made sure the patients got back into a clean made bed and clean nightie or PJs. Happy days!

Sadly care homes and hospitals probably don’t have the staff to give that level of care now.

I’m surprised to read that this is standard! DM was in a home, self funded, and was helped to shower every day. There was a hairdressing salon for hair washes etc and residents could have their nails painted regularly too.

This was as recently as 2018

Hair wash 2/3 times a week? Why?

Chat to the Home Manager rather than the senior. The difference between what the senior enables and the manager’s expectations is sometimes very different.

In my DM’s nursing home she was only getting her hair washed once a week so
I emailed the manager and politely told them her hair looked greasy and unclean a lot of the time and then they started washing it a lot more frequently. It wasn’t a thing and was easily resolved.

I’d like to think we’ve moved on a bit from the weekly bath or shower being the norm. Really, giving someone a shower is just as quick as a flannel wash and should be offered every day. You say residents aren’t exerting themselves but they are still excreting bodily fluids so do need a proper wash. Once a week is appalling and I would complain about it.

I’ve posted about this several times but “care” of the elderly is shocking and only to going to get worse.

Some of the residents in care homes are so far gone with dementia, they can require a staff member with them almost constantly. A well staffed care home will have approximately 1 staff per 4/5 residents on the day shift so maybe 8 staff for 32 residents (on a good day).

but one of those will be doing the never ending medicines round, one doing other “nursing” things like dressings, care plans, social work liaison, doctor visits etc. so maybe 6 staff to care for all the residents including feeding, personal care, mobilising them to day room (can take 10 mins), giving cups of tea etc etc etc in addition to bathing/showering. Plus staff need breaks too. It really is relentless.

add the quality of the staff into the mix and it’s even worse. You only have to see the horrible footage in the press this week showing “carers” treating an elderly lady with dementia appallingly.

we are so dependent on overseas staff to care for our most vulnerable. These people can have as little as 2 days mandatory training plus a number of online modules with assessments you can often easily guess the answers to and you are then let loose to provide elderly care.

no one can convince me that a 24 year old guy from Africa/Albania/elsewhere is doing this work because it’s their lifelong dream. They are doing it for the visa and the money and have zero emotional buy in. Many work 6 days a week for extra cash so they do as little as they can get away with as they are so tired and fed up.

I am terrified of ending up in a care home - I worked in an extremely highly rated one and I wouldn’t even want to go there. It’s so grim and depressing.

Carer here. Not good enough if she wants to be showered more often. Ask to see her care plan. Does she have capacity to make her own decisions?

If social services are involved, send an email to the home manager, social services and copy in cqc.

It can take ages to get patients to the shower , into shower, clothes off, helped to wash,out,dried ,dressed, helped/wheeled back to room. Will need someone with them most likely all the time for the majority.

Rellies could pop in and do it I’m sure if they needed .

@Josette77 i can really scrub my feet in the bath. I tend not to wear shoes unless I’m going out.

Rellies could pop in and do it I’m sure if they needed

My DM’s home costs £1600 per week, I’m not popping in to shower her.

Was this really normal for that generation?

My parents (boomers), grandparents (born between 1908 and 1921) and great grandparents (youngest born 1895) all bathed daily and seem to think it was normal. No showers though, and hair washed once a week.

DM had carers three times a day, paid for mainly by social services, and had a shower every morning.

Things are only going to get worse, if the people being brought in are anything to go by.
The government and the NHS are to blame at the state the NHS is going to be in in the next 5/10 years.
We have 3 new staff and not 1 of them has a caring bone in their body. Ignore patients asking for toilet, ignore buzzers, fraudulently fill in care rounding charts, fall asleep at the nurses station is just the tip of the iceberg.

So getting paid the same as us to do very little.

Oh and openly admit they don't want to be there.

Every staff member has complained as they are a danger to patients. They have been spoken to by ward manager multiple times, nothing changes. It's like they're doing it on purpose.
Any other job you would be sacked, not the NHS.

A simple 3 month trial would root out those not suited to the job but no, let's just give everyone a contract and you core staff will just have to like it or lump it.
Anything to up the numbers but will in effect cause the good staff left to look elsewhere.

Something needs to change.

I do feel there should be a bit of a partnership with care home staff and relatives. If I am visiting mum I would always take her to the toilet myself not just expect a carer to take over. I can see they are busy. I try and help them out not just criticise. I try and pop in as much as I can as she needs a lot of encouragement to drink. In an ideal world I think staff ratios should be much higher for dementia patients especially.

My Dad with dementia had one a week and that was a stressful event for all. My mum has 2 or 3 but wouldn't care if she didn't. If your aunt wants more that should be facilitated

I've worked in care homes and sadly this is standard. They should be offering help with personal care... We used to give a full strip wash in the morning at the sink and then freshen face and hands at night. If there were incontinence issues we would wash them as and when necessary.
Unfortunately the law at the time was 1 carer to 10 residents or 1 to 8 residents with dementia. If chronically low staffed it would be impossible for us to fit in baths and showers, at one point I stayed on an extra 4 hours and bathed 6 residents without pay because they hadn't been bathed in months...
In short, it sucks and the carers will wish they could do more, but the owners give us 8 minutes to wake someone up, wash and dress them and get the to the breakfast table - they don't care about allowing for having a nice hot bath and a soak for aching joints.
I'm sorry that it sucks so much and I truly wish it were better.

If her wish is for a daily shower the home should be making that happen without excuses.

Use a flannel to wash yourself in the shower!

Does she actually want a shower more frequently? My mum is in her 90s and has one shower a week - she is exhausted afterwards and sleeps for a couple of hours. She would hate to have that every day.

Same happened to my DM and I requested an extra shower which was added to her care plan. She is washed down twice a day though. We also pay for her to have a wash and blow dry with the visiting hairdresser.