Advice on finding live in carer for parent with terminal cancer

[sleeplessbunny]

My DM has a terminal cancer diagnosis and is living at home while slowly deteriorating healthwise. She has regular contact with palliative care nurses from the local hospice and the district team and we have paid for a carer to visit once a day for general household help. I am also nearby and make short visits most days.

Her condition is such that she is still just about physically capable of most day to day tasks, but they exhaust her and she sleeps a lot. Her pain is well controlled. She gets anxious and agitated easily but on the face of it is managing to eat, dress and wash so has no urgent care needs. However, I can see her getting more upset every day and I think she is probably depressed.

She has had various assessments but without strong care needs she is not entitled to much help. Each assessment emphasises her maintaining her independence, but at the moment I really feel that she doesn't really want to be independent. I think she just wants someone to look after her.

If it weren't for COVID, I would definitely be looking for a suitable care home at this stage. DM has even said she would rather go into a care home now, but when we discussed the implications around visiting due to COVID, changed her mind.

I like the idea of a live in carer for her. However, none of the organisations suggested by the adult social care team have any availability - i just managed to get a 30 min visit for her once a day.

One of the palliative nurses suggested looking for a "private" carer, and explained that these are unregulated. She is not allowed to make recommendations but suggested googling. The thought of just googling a live in carer for my vulnerable mum, with no regulation, is rather horrifying to me, but I'm starting to realise this may be the only way.

Does anyone have any experience of successfully finding private live in carers? Some links or recommendations would be very welcome. TIA

Do you have a local Facebook page for your area? You can ask for recommendations?

Have pmd you.

Having a live in carer has worked fantastically for my mum - and only a little more expensive than the care home that she tried out and abolutely hated. She gets so much comfort from being in familiar settings in her own home, and loves her carer, who is now part of the family.

Thank you. For some reason I hadn't considered asking on fb, not sure why!

Thanks for the PM @Notverygrownup I am glad to hear you have had such a positive experience.

Sorry to read what you are going through.

We had good experiences with https://www.country-cousins.co.uk in 2012 for DF and and again last year for DM.

They act as agents, so that fees are due to both the agents and the people providing the service. They did find us candidates who were a really good match initially at short notice but then as required. The gist was comparable to those of a care hone but of course there were the additional costs of running the house with a gardener/cleaner / ironing etc service

Each carer lived in for two weeks at a time. We tried four different people and kept three out of those four, who then rotated round two weeks st a time. It meant that we had good cover and they could go on holiday or have tine off generally without any issues arising.

The local offices are I think franchises so could vary by area. We found this approach just so much more convenient that employing one person directly.

The Good Care Group cared for my Mum before she died. CQC Outstanding. Excellent care. But very expensive. I would recommend. They provide carers nationwide. Lots of info on their website.

Thanks everyone for your recommendations.

We also tried the Good Care Group and had a bad experience with the carers they sent (although they seemed very good apart from that!). We now use a local agency that puts people in touch with self employed carers and its much better. The agency takes a much smaller cut so the carers earn more.

HomeTouch is another similar agency. Seems to be £700-£1000 p.w.