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Original poster

Another care home exposé - terrified about my mother going into one

41 replies

FreckledLeopard · 30/04/2014 14:20

So I've just read another story about another nursing home with the elderly being abused - here's a link to the Independent

My mother has vascular dementia. She's currently in sheltered accommodation but it's looking as if she'll have to go into a nursing home some time in the next few years. I work full time, am an only child and don't know how I'd care for her if she were to live with me. I suppose I could get a carers in ?

I really don't know what to do for the best? Are there any nursing homes that don't pay minimum wage and who recruit people who actually care about the patients? Is it worth looking for a care home with CCTV in each room so that I can be sure that nothing untoward happens?

The thought of someone abusing a vulnerable, elderly person is just absolutely horrific and it seems to happen so often. I cannot tolerate the idea it could happen to my mother.

Anyone else in a similar situation? How does one know what to do for the best?

OP posts:

ILoveCoreyHaim · 14/05/2014 01:03

My DM is a council home help and paid by the hour and has to spend a set amount of time at each home. I have friends who are carers through a private company who are paid per visit and ram as many calls in as they can and make far more than my DM. I know our council have cut right back on home helps with many job losses. If you are thinking about using a homehelp/carer I guess you should also research the company they are coming from if possible

ProfessorDent · 14/05/2014 12:48

I think there's a disconnect between what some are paying, and the importance of it, and what the staff are getting paid in most instances.

Don't think the poster was talking about the verbally abusive, just someone being a bit picky, thing is a grand a week is more than you'd spend on a school/hotel/even mortgage and even two of those are not week in week out. But you don't get five-star treatment.

Added to which, oddly, I haven't seen many old blokes in most of the nursing homes I've been at, esp where they all sit around as a community in front of the telly, it seems to be 95 per cent women.

mimishimmi · 14/05/2014 13:10

I've been looking into getting home help for my grandfather. He is not in a nursing home but independent-living retirement village. He would have to pay slightly more than minimum wage as a contribution to get help in (fortunately he can well afford this although might be difficult to convince him). Those on the public pension have a much larger subsidy. I just hope that any service cuts here in Sydney won't affect those who can afford to pay privately (although of course I wouldn't want them to affect those who can't either).

Cleanthatroomnow · 14/05/2014 13:26

I volunteer in a really lovely new care home. Not private. I hope it's the template for the future. They HAVE to start paying staff more, though.

LackaDAISYcal · 14/05/2014 13:30

There are good and bad care homes as well as good and bad carers, but the vast majority are excellent; Do some initial research, then go visit, talk to the relatives of the people in there and ask to see the residents doing an acitivity if they will allow it (might be some privacy thing that prevents it)

Beware the 'silent killer' ie dehydration. Quite easy really to bump someone off, just don't give them much to drink, you can then say, oh she's gone off her drink won't cooperate. No incriminating marks, nothing you can do. It is your word against there's that your relative could drink

Are you seriously suggesting that care homes/carers are doing this ProfessorDent? . Is it not biting the hand that feeds you? I appreciate that you have had a bad experience with your mum regarding her kidney infection. Have you reported the home and the hospital? Taken it to the police? After all you are saying that they have basically abused your mother.

I'm a home care worker; is there a possibility of getting home carers in for her if she came to live with you? most people qualify for some financial help with it and home care also provide respite services for people who have elderly relatives living at home so they can have a break. Every carer is entitled to eight hours a week free, though there will be a waiting list for that aspect of it.

But, please don't assume that all homes and all carers are monsters; they are in a very small minority. Sadly you never hear about the good carers who go the extra mile in time and money to help people out, for what amounts to less than the minimum wage.

LackaDAISYcal · 14/05/2014 13:33

and no old men isn't odd at all as most women outlive men by a good few years. I have some male clients (less than 10%) but they tend to be younger.

LackaDAISYcal · 14/05/2014 13:34

not most women outlive men, but on average women outlive men.

ProfessorDent · 14/05/2014 15:54

Don't know for sure if they were bumping them off. Biting the hand that feeds you? Not really, as the care staff get paid the same no matter how many are there, it affects the proprietor surely. I am in the process of reporting the home, have been delayed with work commitments, having to deal with the hospital, easing her into a new home, so on so forth. And because the report is quite long...

It was no hassle to give my Mum a drink, even now you bung a straw in her mouth and off she goes, 500ml. I provided straws in a beaker by her chair with instructions, none were ever used. I tried to show one of the young staff members, who were then called away by the persistently unpleasant senior nurse, nice!

As for bad carers being in a minority, not sure how you would know, though not casting aspersions in your direction, it's just the CQC reviews are hopeless and there is no way of giving feedback, no TripAdvisor-style websites at all. And you are unlikely to pick a fight over it frankly, you cannot antagonise those who are looking after your relative, as I have found to my cost.

LackaDAISYcal · 14/05/2014 19:10

three years in care work and in that time I have only seen one carer who had questionable manner with the clients. Most carers are in it because they want to be and the ones that don't/can't hack it soon move on. We're not here for the pay or conditions that's for sure

With care homes, the fault is with the institution usually for not providing enough staff, for not providing adeqaute training, or following up with regular reviews.

I'm sorry you have had a bad experience and are understandably angry with what has happened and yes, failings do happen, but your bad experience does not make all carers abusers, and I resent your "not casting aspertions in your direction" line. What does that mean? That I am an abuser by virtue of being a carer? That I am lying? That I work in isolation and have never met another carer so can't possibly be a judge of character?

And, if you are making accusations that the care home and hospital staff deliberately withheld drinks from your mother in order to try and kill her off, I would make pretty sure that your comments can't be traced back to you in real life; that's a pretty weighty accusation.

ProfessorDent · 14/05/2014 19:26

"Not casting aspersions in your direction" means that I am not accusing you personally of being a bad carer.

I did not say all carers are abusers – where do I say that? I am saying that there is no way for an outsider of knowing whether they are or not. More to the point, there is a thin line from my point of view between someone just not bothering and doing it deliberately.

As for people doing it for the love of it, well, who knows? Some will be doing it because they get paid better over here than they might in another country. All kinds of people go into a line of work liking it at first, it doesn't mean they do 20 years down the line.

Thanks for your sympathetic comments though, Lacka...

mimishimmi · 14/05/2014 22:38

I do agree dehydration is a big killer but I disagree that it's probably the staff's fault. I asked my grandfather the other day if he had been drinking enough water (as I gave him some) and he said he doesn't like to because it makes him want to go to the bathroom. He's not in a care situation but if he was immobilised and needed assistance to go to the loo, I can see how that would become a much larger issue. Not sure how it is in the UK but most homes are seriously understaffed here to save costs. Even if they have the best carers in the world, there simply aren't enough.

ProfessorDent · 15/05/2014 19:18

Have to agree about a poor carer ratio, it is quite a common problem, and often the cause of some elderly going under.

And of course, as mimi says if the drink goes straight through, it just leads to another problem...

WynkenBlynkenandNod · 21/05/2014 12:52

I've just been subjected to a pressured sales call from someone at Sunrise Senior Living in Southborne. I went to look at their assisted living section but didn't go and look at the section dealing with advanced Dementia as was intending to go back when my Brother looked around. In the event I didn't .

Brother looked, didn't like the advanced bit but did quite like the assisted living. However we felt the other residents weren't quite up Mum's street and combined with how Brother felt about the advanced section we decided not for us. Brother shown a smallish room, none of the larger ones available. Not long after a big one suddenly became available so he received a call. In the end I think there was a text as well and he got fed up and blocked the number.

So I've just had the call - had I spoken to my Brother recently ? Er yes I had. The only thing he didn't like the guy informed me was the size of the room but there's one available now. I said actually he didn't like the Advanced Dementia section to which the answer was 'well that's further down the line if at all' .

I pointed out we'd clearly need to send her to a place where we are happy with the care for all stages of the disease. He said I hadn't seen it, that's what Dementia is like and that he might be biased but he didn't think I'd be able to find a place that dealt with Advanced Dementia better. I was able to say we had visited one and were both impressed with the care offered at which point he sounded surprised and it took a lot of self control not to tell him where to go.

This is my Mother we are talking about, I strongly object to feeling I was taking part in a sales conversation and am shocked at how pushy he was and how under pressure I felt.

MrsRuffdiamond · 21/05/2014 13:15

feeling I was taking part in a sales conversation

That's the trouble. As far as they're concerned, you are. I don't know how you reconcile the need for thoughtful, tailored, individual care for the elderly, with the profit motive.

WynkenBlynkenandNod · 21/05/2014 13:25

Tis true. But, most places have handled it sensitively (seen 12 so far) so it was a bit of a shock to take part in that conversation and it has made me very very cross.

whataboutbob · 21/05/2014 13:44

I ve been there with grandad in France ( with no preliminaries the manager pulled her calculator Out and punched in a series of numbers, all while smoking a fag). Didn t go for that place. With dad s aborted settling in to a home. The manager was not backwards in telling me my brother ( vulnerable adult) didn t need to live in dad s house, it should be sold and bro re housed somewhere smaller. It feels awful To be having this kind of very personal conversation with a total stranger, with money being the prime focus.

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