Care home closed to visitors

[Saz12]

Dads care home has closed to visitors (corona virus). When I say “closed” it really is closed to ALL non-essential visits (basically, anyone non-medical). No “one visitor for half-an-hour a week to separate area”. A blanket no visitors.
I’m worried that Dad won’t remember me by the time this has lifted (couple months?).
He has no real quality of life and I’m absolutely sure that if he had the choice he would want visitors even if it caused him an earlier death.
Obviously other residents probably don’t feel the same way!

Caring for him myself is impossible as he needs 24-hour care and I need to work (am 30 years away from retirement).

What, if anything, can I do?

So she may, but what she's saying her is wrong and may lead to more upset

She's also, under different names, proved to be an out and out fantasist over the years.

So I implore anyone to take what she says with a huge pinch of salt.

Im happy to be called names, I'm not happy to watch distressed people be given incorrect information at a time of panic and uncertain.

I'm out.

@ Bargebill19, I've been telephoning her at the home so that's something. She has her own mobile but she's lost the ability to use the touchscreen to answer or make a call (only recently has this declined.) She can't read anymore so writing a letter would be no good but your point about sending her mail is a good one - I can get the DCs to draw her pictures. She'd love that .

Btw, as upsetting as it is I am bloody glad that they've gone on lockdown as it gives me peace of mind that my mum is less likely to catch it while she is limited to who she comes into contact with.

The staff are fucking amazing. Such lovely lovely people!

Any of the staff should read her mail to her and show her any post, they can describe the pictures if she is having problems and can’t use a magnifying glass or sheet.
I would ask if a member of staff can help her use what’s app - it’s what Im doing (and Skype). I text the family we are ‘in position’ and away we go. I know it’s not the same as being there.
I would (cheeky!) suggest that your lovely dc’s perhaps draw some more pictures that could be shown to other residents. We belong to postcards of kindness on Facebook - all my residents love to see and hear from people who take the time to put a few friendly words on a card, it also is useful
As a Conversation starter over a cup of tea and a biscuit.

That’s lovely to hear busysittingdown, please let them know - carers love to know we are doing a good job.

DM and aunt are in different nursing homes both of which are now blocking all visitors. Whilst my aunt has her mobile phone, DM has lost her speech. So the rest of the family have been taking turns to send postcards and small parcels instead to cheer them up. The post seems very much appreciated.
One of the care homes is setting up Facetime calls with residents and its possible to book a timeslot for use of the carerteam ipad. It might be worth suggesting something similar?

Bargebill, I will make sure I always let them know how great they are. My mum is always telling them how lovely they are . She'll say to them, "you're a lovely lady/man you, aren't you?" Which makes them laugh.

On behalf of all care workers . . Thank you. It means a lot. X

Objectively, it makes sense to quarantine a care home. And communication by Skype or phone should be an option. That said, there are care homes itching to ban relatives who assert themselves over their parent's care - and in Surrey do so with the full endorsement of the dodgy local authority aka Social Services. The especially applies if your parent might be construed as having an 'underlying health problem' where any (cost-saving) death can be attributed by the coroner to that.
Barchester's Reigate Beaumont tried to do that with us - and as per Council instructions, timed it for Christmas to inflict maximum hurt!

With that in mind, I'd urge everyone to get Lasting Power of Attorney for their parents, in both finance and health and welfare. They have to grant it to you and be in a position mentally to do that. Without it, the State basically owns your parent and is the decision maker for their care. The State profits from your parent's death and I cannot put it any blunter than that. It saves money in pensions, prescriptions and all round adult social care.
Trust me, I know and I found out the hard way.
Care homes like to bar relatives anyway who assert themselves over their parent's care, but now have a ready excuse to do so. Until now the main way of killing off the elderly seems to be via covert dehydration - the family is not informed and just assumes that it was 'their time'. This is done with the complicity of the local authority - such as Surrey, for instance.
The coronavirus outbreak knocks all such sly endeavours into a cocked hat. It's going to be wipeout. Hospitals can't cope - the NHS has been deliberately run down over a decade of Tory austerity, to allow the private sector to 'helpfully' step up to the plate.

The Govt won't get the blame as coronavirus is not directly their fault.

Get LPA while you still can. Without it, you can't even look at your parent's medical notes. With it, you just might be able to get them home 'to die' but trust me, if they're at home they're more likely to live if you are caring for them. But otherwise, and even with LPA, the corrupt Social Services can stop that from happening.
I am not kidding. My late mother was in seven care homes over six years and it took a long time for me to figure out what was going on. She had Parkinson's - an example of the 'underlying condition' which allows them to kill off the elderly and attribute it to that at the inquest.

Also complicit are the CQC and NMC, not that you really need to know that, but be assured, this goes to the top. All you need to know is, Get LPA if you still can.

I’m sorry that you feel that way, and yes some care homes are sadly shocking. I’m
not going to argue that.
But please do not tar us all with the same brush. The cqc work very hard to constantly improve all homes’ standards of care. Staff work very hard to keep residents alive and healthy and happy.
If we were all in it to kill off the elderly - we would very soon be out of business. There are arguably far easier ways to eradicate a large proportion of society.
I’m glad you see the sense in the current restrictions/quarantines coming into effect. They are there precisely to prevent needless deaths. Sadly some families think it is ‘over the top, knee jerk reactions’.
I wish it were.

I’m having the opposite problem. My father’s care home went into lockdown on Friday but now are allowing visiting with additional precautions in place.

My mother 89 rang to tell me excitedly that we could visit again and I had to break her heart and say you mustn’t go, you are supposed to be in isolation. I feel terrible but the risk to her is too great.

My father has advanced dementia is extremely frail and the expectation is that he has months to live. I’m being put in the position of enforcer.

If I visit I worry not only about inadvertently passing on something but also picking up the virus and then passing it on to her.

The situation is awful which ever way you look.

Oh dear Winter that’s a real tough one.
My DSis visited the admin person at carehome and left a foot spa sachet and biscuits for DM and a big thank you card and home made fruitcake for the staff only. (they said the would sneak mum a bit) Our staff have been getting a tough time from families apparently. All so difficult. Everyone stressed.

Oh, experience of the CQC shows they're quite corrupt - same with the NMC and many regulators. That's not an insult - at least, not by their lights. One person's corrupt insitution is another person's tight ship.

The local authority can do as it pleases and you can argue the toss later. Lose your rag with care home staff no matter how justified and they'll bar you citing abuse and intimidation, with the Council's backing. That's why I mentioned LPA in Health and Welfare - it may be the only way around this is to get them home.

There's been a legal cull of the elderly for years now - mainly via dehydration - and this is all their Xmas's come at once. Not much need for the Govt's Green Paper on Adult Social Care - wait long enough, and the situation resolves itself.

Well at least now I know why I spend hours filling in fluids charts and refilling juice jugs, doing tea trolleys and making endless other drinks all day - to kill people off.

You had a bad time - we get it.
We are all trying to do our best to KEEP PEOPLE ALIVE.
Cqc aren’t corrupt - quite the opposite they are most certainly working for and on behalf or residents and families NOT care staff.

If you want things to change - volunteer don’t spout rubbish.

Well, you don't work in any Surrey care home.
Then again, maybe you do. Many care homes did the refilling jugs every morning, and the tea trolley. No use if the jug is the other side of the room and they can't get out of bed. No use if someone can't actually give them the tea - they get left off the tea round. See the Daily Mail story 'Murdered by the Pathway' from late 2016.

CQC? Yep, totally corrupt. Sat on bad care home reviews for eight months keeping us all in the dark. Allow bad care home to reopen under a new name to avoid past bad reviews.

For more on this:
compassionincare.com/
And read Private Eye.

Volunteer? I spent over three years visiting care homes to give my mother drink while paying out over a grand a week to the care home thank you very much, I've done my time.

I took several stories about my Mother's poor care to the press, both local and national. Nobody - not the CQC, not Social Servicers, got in touch about it, despite being copied in. And I only went to the press because the SS and CQC turned out to be dud. That says it all.

No I don’t work in Surrey.

If there was any truth in what you’ve said and you had supporting evidence, then everyone would have been all over it.

Care homes are closed. Press are all over the slightest possibility of poor care.

You say your mum lasted 7 years. That’s amazing considering she had ‘poor care’ and Parkinson’s.

I really think you need to open your eyes to what poor care actually is. It isn’t what your mum receives having survived that long in the care home. People are very ill before being admitted.

You clearly are grief stricken and not accepting that people die. Get counselling and if you want things to change, either volunteer or work from within. Yelling wildly in these difficult times will not achieve a thing.

If you were as irate then as you are now, then, no wonder you were threatened with being banned. Care workers are hit, spat at and have objects thrown at them almost daily - we just take it. Having families verbally or physically abuse us as well - is really just too much for even the most patient carer, so yes, they will ban you. We are highly trained but poorly paid humans who work long hours often for no pay and no thanks from relatives. Our residents are like family. We aren’t trained killers which is what you are implying.
As an aside you clearly have zero idea of business models. Exactly where do you think care home business will be paid from if they kill off all the elderly in their care??

Bargebill19

Well said. While it does have its faults, the best thing by far about the home my mother is in is the staff. I am relatively new to all this, and I have been bowled over by the caring attitude of the staff towards the residents, and by how they keep smiling no matter what.

Exiledfromcornwall.

Thank you. We do try, we are only human.

I have decided I am going to post letters to the care home on a regular basis with two enclosures. Each time I’m going to send one for the care team saying how grateful I am to both the night and day staff and appreciate their sacrifice and in the other I will write in primary school style telling my DM that her family love her and send her hugs If I had a laminator I’d laminate my DM’s letter. If anyone has further suggestions I’d be grateful.

You can send videos of yourself or anything you think might be of interest via email direct to the home, which they can show to your mum. If you have a smartphone, download what’s app and ask a member of staff to arrange a what’s app video call. Both are very effective. You may be allowed to stand outside a window and speak to your mum via an ordinary mobile phone - so you can see each other but talk on a phone , or through a small gap in a window. This depends on the layout of the grounds and windows. Care packages can also be posted or arranged to be left at the door for a meme we is staff to give to your mum. Online deliveries are still legally allowed.
I send my families a photo of their loved ones smiling or engaging in an activity, if they are not ‘connected’ with the internet, or telephones are beyond a residents capacity. Perhaps this might help you feel more involved in her daily life?
Thank you for thinking of the staff too. Kind words mean a lot to us. Now more than ever we are all working longer and harder to keep residents happy and safe.
It is a very difficult and sad situation to be in, I hope there is something in these suggestions that might make it easier to bear.

Thanks, Barge, We got an email with photos from out care home today. Lovely. Very grateful.

Bargebill19, yes my mother lasted 6 years in 7 care homes. The last few years my sister and I had to take it in turns to go in daily to give her drink, because care homes refused to do so. THAT is why she lived so long. In 2014 she nearly died as she went into hospital with severe kidney injury due to dehydration, a long-term grade-two pressure wound that nobody had properly treated or informed us about, and aspiration pneumonia. On the third night her BP dropped to 40/20.She only pulled thru cos I could take time off to assist. Nobody has been held to account, and the CQC failed that care home the month before and kept it secret.

I reported the care home manager to the corrupt NMC in 2016 when I realised nobody else would. This week I got an email from them saying that due to the coronavirus outbreak the hearing would be postponed. They've had 4 years to deal with it and have delayed at every turn, and did the usual trick of watering down my witness statement.

I am not grief stricken, I am totally pissed off. So don't patronise me.

The reason I was threatened with being banned is because a) I reported said care home to the press in October 2014 b) Surrey County Council is insanely vindictive and wanted to get its own back c) I had unwittingly rumbled the new care home's dehydration programmes and they most likely worried I'd whistleblow again.

The press all over it? Not likely. The local press cannot afford to piss on the Council's chips too often and indeed avoid mentioning the names of any Safeguarding head.

I've never heard of any relatives spitting at carers, the police would be called out right away (quite rightly too.) But for more on the trend of 'Relative Retribution' as covered by the Daily Mail and Daily Express, you can also visit the website Your Voice Matters set up by Jenny Moore who found herself barred by a Barchester Care Home.

I never was barred from a care home, but the Reigate Beaumont has been compiling a file on me with the full authorisation of the Council - and that started a week or so after my expose to the local press.

Our lack of LPA in Health and Welfare for Mum assisted the Council at every turn. So back to my main point - if anyone can get their relative to grant them LPA while they still can, they may have a bit more leverage.