Paying for private at home care

[A580Hojas]

Hello. I've found a care Agency I like the look of for my very elderly (91) mother and they have been to visit her and we have talked on the phone about the level of care she needs to start off with.

My Mum is resistant at the moment. This is because she is feeling fairly well in herself just now and feels she can manage at home without help - although she cannot shower alone and has only had two showers in 5 months!!!

She doesn't feel well all the time and has had many spells of ill health since last Autumn, 2 stays in hospital and 3 weeks respite care in a nursing home followed by 2 weeks reablement care organised by the council.

Still. She is reluctant to set this care up. It would be £27 for half an hour, 3 mornings a week. So about £90 per week. She can EASILY afford this. The alternatives would be 1. no care visits at all and therefore no showers at all (foul) or 2. to go to a nursing home which is £1400 per week.

Sorry this is getting a bit long.

Anyway, the care agency want 4 weeks payment in advance and then they invoice fortnightly. I am just trying to establish what this 4 weeks payment is - if it's some sort of deposit or if she will not receive her first invoice until 6 weeks after the care has started. Am waiting to hear from the agency on this point.

What do people think about these fees? She lives in Hampshire if relevant. If she arranged care through social services would the charges be similar? She has well over £23,000 savings and a property so obviously would have to pay.

I'd really welcome any views on this as I am becoming utterly exasperated with her!

Can you suggest a "different set of solutions for loneliness" LadyGardener?

These proposed visits are not just to shower her and of course she doesn't need to have 3 showers a week. She does smell a bit stale actually. Anyone would after 2 showers in 5 months.

But paying £90 for 3 showers a week is how she chooses to view what's proposed so that she can argue against it. She's got nearly £80,000 in savings and is 91 so I don't know what better things she thinks she can do with that money.

What me and my brother would like is someone seeing her regularly, checking in on her and hopefully being on call (via the agency) if she falls again at home, or to help her when she can't make a GP appointment, use the internet, pick things up from the floor, or help her sit outside in the garden for half an hour or whatever he and I cannot do as we live miles away.

Until January she showered every day or every other day. She enjoys them because they warm her up and take away some of her general aches and pains. She was thrilled to get her one shower in the care home and her one shower from the social services carer.

I had to look into this recently when it looked as though my father might need care at home after a hospital stay. I looked at Home Instead, a nationally available homecare service, who are very highly rated by CQC. In the end they were not required but I keep them at the back of my mind just in case.

Has she signed up with a careline alarm and a keysafe just in case she does fall, the agency could be the first responders and call for extra help if they need it. If she is paying for a private carer then she can have as many visits as she wants but they wont be on call to just pop round to sit in the garden. If she likes to be up washes and dressed by 7am do check that she is charged the right rate, that might be a night rate if the carer gets there before 7. There might be a local befriending group, her gp may offer social prescribing who can help her with appointments, company, trips out.

My parent uses Home Instead and pays £31 an hour. One of the ‘selling points’ is they won’t do less than one hour visits. This is better for them however I think it is also true that it is better for the client too. They are a franchise so I’m not sure how the rate or quality varies per area. My parent has had excellent staff visit her however she has also, in about one year, experienced one no show and about 3 changes to time of visit where no notice was given. This really pees her off and worries me as I sometimes arrange for deliveries to coincide with the carer being there. However the care industry is struggling for (suitable and trained) staff so I guess this incident rate is understandable.

you say
What me and my brother would like is someone seeing her regularly, checking in on her and hopefully being on call (via the agency) if she falls again at home, or to help her when she can't make a GP appointment, use the internet, pick things up from the floor, or help her sit outside in the garden for half an hour or whatever he and I cannot do as we live miles away

home instead do all of this EXCEPT being on call - I don’t know any service that does that. If anyone else does, please share. I suspect you’d need a private carer to do this. The home instead contract specifically says you can’t employ their employees privately so you cant get the carer to do this as ‘extra’ either.

home instead do offer support for hospital visits. I am not sure how practical this is as anything ad-hoc seems too difficult for them to arrange. Again, it seems down to staff availability.

emergency alarms are often mentioned. Again, as far as I understand, though the initial call may be routed to a third party, they ultimately call you so they provide ‘safety’ but not a service to go round to your Mum.

it is my experience that anything regular is doable but anything ad-hoc is not.

I sometimes provide an on call service for my private clients. I charge a small monthly retainer and then an hourly rate if I get called out