Would you expect a care home to stay with care user when going to urgent care/ a&e

[itispersonal]

Anyone in the know - have an elderly dementia aunt in a care home. Had a fall 2 weeks ago no fracture but had a moon boot. Stopped weight bearing on foot over the last few days and knee swollen a little bit. Care home and a carer took aunty to urgent care but called my elderly mum to come and be with her as they couldn’t stay due to staffing! 10 hours later after being transferred to OOT drs and then to a&e they are back home.

mum has been in tears it is too much for her, she can’t push the wheelchair, help her physically or emotionally. I went to help later in the afternoon but couldn’t help with transport as couldn’t get wheelchair in car. And hard for me to help aunty move.

should care home be staying with aunty? What would happen if my mum didn’t go? Aunty has children but they aren’t involved, and aren’t emotional attached if aunty is at the hospital on her own. Whereas my mum and I are.

In case of attending A&E care home do
not have to send a member of staff and often won’t as it’s an emergency. Unless a resident has 1-2-1 funding in which case a member of staff should escort as that carer is there for that particular resident only.

In cases of planned appointments a member of staff should attend and escort aunt and patient transport can be arranged by the home if your mum cannot do it. Your aunt will likely have to pay to be escorted to her appointments but as it’s a planned appointment the home should be able to arrange this with their staff in advance.

Your best option is to speak to the home and see what they can offer x

Yes I would expect it. The care home are the persons carer and are getting funds to do that. A hospital visit is care. The family are not.

Similar for my dad (dementia) - with my mum, the hospital didn't want her to take a carer as she has mental capacity, so then it's just a question of arranging transport.

OP, there are private ambulance/wheelchair taxi services that come with suitable staff who can quote for the expected round trip and staying with your relative, but they are expensive.

I will be an old person with no family (only child, no children) and I am terrified of all this. 😔

The care home or hospital can arrange hospital or community transport, it's not up to relatives to transport residents especially if they need any sort of manual handling or use of equipment which they wont be trained how to use.

I’m with you having seen a number of relatives go through the care process I’d much rather shuffle off after I’ve had a decent innings.

Hospital transport can be arranged - however, if it’s for an appointment like a scan ie non urgent, then if the ambulance gets called to something else, it may be cancelled at fairly short notice.

From my experience you can't expect much from care home staff, they do very little and take no responsibility.

They love getting rid of inmates to hospital- less owrk for them for the same fees.

In this instance, the aunt is not transferring to hospital, she is there having a swelling reviewed.

What would you expect staff to do in this case?

Hospital should have a transport service.

The home most likely struggles to staff itself full stop, never mind having to find another 2 staff each day (1 night and 1 day). A hospital escort is in effect like a 1:1 carer and that's rather expensive. So no l wouldn't expect them to and they probably couldn't even if they wanted to