Frustrating Care agency - what would you do??

[IamtheDevilsAvocado]

So elderly parent has had daily care in for some months helping them get up..

Initially care agency promised that they could attend between 8-9am...fine...'this will be fine, no issue... Written into care contract.

Parent has many medical /social /general appts-they are often so late, he misses these... Literally over 50 per cent of the time.

Often with no phone call from agency... Not 10mins later... Literally 90 mins /2 hours.

I've had MANY chats with the agency.

Aibu to sack them off with immediate effect??

To me they have broken their contract.

They'll want me to pay notice period..
As they want me to pay for visits that we've cancelled otherwise parent would miss medical appts... 🤬

So?? Aibu?

Can they chase me for this money?? This has taken hours of my time...

Are you paying privately or is it a commissioned service through the local authority? If it's private check the signed terms and conditions. There's likely to be a cancellation notice period but it's generally seven days. Put in a formal complaint detailing the missed visits. Late calls. Missed appointments. Only pay for the calls that occurred. Ask them for the electronic attendance records so you have evidence of poor service.

If it's commissioned then notify the social worker again with details of the poor service and request a provider transfer.

You need to put in a formal complaint re the timings. When you started the care plan the company should have given you very clear details on how to complain (this is a requirement from the CQC) there will always be times when the carers are a little late or visits are changed due to staff sickness, but to be this consistent with lateness and missing appointments is not acceptable. Speak to the registered care manager and if you don’t feel that things are changing for the better , then give notice and look for another company (assuming you are private, as you mention paying for visits)

Usually the notice period is only 48 hours. And if you cancel a visit with more than 24 hours notice (while presumably you're doing for planned appointments) they should not charge. But check your contract.

Bear in mind it may take some time to arrange another agency to take over.

Unfortunately we have this experience on a number of occasions with all the care agencies we used for my mum - the better ones would ring and let us know. Often unavoidable, eg issue with previous client unwell/fallen, and can't be left, staff sickness etc. (Crises with my mum had been the cause of delays for other clients). If we could step in we would.
However there were also occasions that we made formal complaints about - eg. I called in unexpectedly and discovered the carer doing the 'tea time' call at 2pm but had recorded her medication given at 6pm! Mum had severe dementia so had no idea. A couple of carers regularly swopping the time to suit their convenience rather than the agreed care plan.
I would also make sure you can find another agency before cancelling your current one.

Yep we had similar.

All care agencies seem to be like this. We tried 4 different ones and none were reliably on time.

Yes we're paying privately.

They expect us to give them 2 weeks notice of cancellation....

they sseem unable to grasp, this is impossible if they only send the rota the day before for the week...

And the reason we're cancelling is BECAUSE HE'S BEEN TIMETABLED WAY TOO LATE!
So this is a pretty unfair /ridiculous term!

Ok, so a few points . Firstly very very few care agencies will guarantee a time, have you checked the contract ? Do you just have a window? Secondly, why are they late? Because if they get stuck with the person before and can’t leave then that’s not really their fault. Thirdly, you’re never going to get someone to come exactly when you want , so if otherwise the care is good then I absolutely wouldn’t sack them off!

are you going to provide this care instead?

To respond to @Youcannotbeseriousreally

No...no time windows... In the care plan it says visits before 9am

It's not about them being late as someone before was unwell/traffic...

It's the agency consistently putting the visit MUCH later than the agreed time... Up to 2.5 hours later...

This has meant he would have missed appts had I not been able to do this... I don't want to do care, I'm unwell myself...

They want to charge me for cancelling...!! When they have not kept to their side of the contract...

You’ll have to pay them the notice if you signed the contract because they have essentially delivered the care hours ( albeit not when you wanted them) but I’d be more concerned about who Is going to take over there. Do they live in a rural area?

Shop around, not all agencies are like this. I've worked for a few and both would have given a time window and tried to stick to between 8-9. Most of the time they would manage it, obviously things happen sometimes and call time has to change at the last minute.
Care agencies vary a lot unfortunately.