If your parent has (paid for) care at home what do they do?

[Honeyroar]

My 82 year old mother has a care firm send carers in for an hour on weeknights. It costs over £35 a day for an hour’s care. They do very light housework and give her her evening meal. But it’s only defrosting something I’ve already cooked or giving her a ready meal. I thought they’d do more of the cooking, but they don’t. They often forget to put bins out on bin days. I’d give them 6/10 overall. Now mum’s starting to mix up her tablets so I’ve asked the carers to take the daily medicine compartment for each day out of the main medicine dispenser each night and leave it on the table so she can’t get confused which she needs to take. . ( I’ve already preloaded the dispenser with her medicine for the week). They say they’re not allowed to touch the medicine and can’t do that. Im not asking them to open it or give them to mum, so don’t really understand.

So I’m going to have to go down each evening and check she’s had her meds, along with still cooking all her meals and doing her shopping. Im starting to think it’s barely worth having them. Plus it’s very expensive and we could do with cutting costs a bit. She likes the company, but I feel like we could have a cleaner twice a week and a hairdresser once a week, plus I’d be popping in.

It would be better if we could find a private carer, have any of you done this?

I guess I’m just interested in what others do.

Oh also, if your mum has good neighbours, they might be willing to put her bin out when they do their own.

My dad's neighbour happily does this for him. If I had an elderly neighbour, I'd be very happy to do this too.

Thanks everyone. Food for thought. We’re currently paying £36 for an hour’s care. They won’t do shorter calls than an hour. I’m just thinking that we’re paying around £800 a month yet I’m still cooking her food, giving her showers twice a week (she doesn’t want them to) and will mow have to go daily to check her meds. I might as well get a cleaner twice a week, get a mobile hairdresser once a week and do the rest myself.

Re the medication. Once a week I put mum’s tablets into a pill box with an and pm sections for each day’s day and leave it on her table - and mum takes it herself. The carers have flagged up that mum has taken the wrong day, or multiple days on a few occasions recently. So I’d asked them to leave the main plastic box on the microwave and to remove the plastic section for the following day and put it on the table when they leave in the evening (where I usually leave the pull box) so there’s no confusion over what day mum needs to take. They wouldn’t have to touch the pills or administer any. Two carers did, but the third wrote a note that they can’t do that.

Re the bins, the council is very good and comes round the back of the house to collect her rubbish because she is elderly. But the carers often forgot to put the rubbish from inside out the night before, despite me leaving signs up asking them to. (Ie, the paper bin is a bag, so inside the house apart from bin days).

Its difficult. Quite a few of the carers have been pretty mediocre, but one, who comes twice a week, is lovely and mum would miss her. Plus if anything else happens I know mum is more or less covered and it takes that worry off my hands. (my dad suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed this year and spent three months in hospital before dying this year, and my husband is on the waiting list for an operation that landed him in intensive care last time).

Thanks for the replies. I’m still trying to decide.

justgettingthroughtheday

Is there a register of self employed carers and what credentials would I be looking for? My friend is trying to get the right kind of care for her father, who can self fund.

Sorry for the thread derail.
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Can you get your mums medicines delivered in a NOMAD each week from pharmacy? We have that now and they are all portioned out by day and time.( I think Nomad might be the Scottish term for these boxes)

I might as well get a cleaner twice a week, get a mobile hairdresser once a week and do the rest myself. That doesn’t sound unreasonable. Have a look if meals on wheels is available in your area. It doesn’t just give a meal, it gives someone to check on her each day.

My parent pays £32 an hour. She used to use Home Instead but recently swopped.
Her current and former agency are
very flexible on what they will do. The only real obstacles are safety (eg no climbing ladders) and ability. They iron (some carers say they don’t like it and are t very good at it but don’t refuse), clean, cook (again, it would be pot luck as none are
trained chefs)would put bins out, make calls on a clients behalf (one carer has the Midas touch with getting organisations to do stuff), put the washer on, take my parent out to the garden. Reading some of the responses here I feel lucky!

on the bins, given enough time with a client to prioritise and deliver key needs, I would see it as pretty inflexible to refuse point blank to do them. Both agencies my parent has used have communication systems for what needs to be done and what has been done so it would be picked up there. That said, most councils have a service for the elderly and disabled who are unable to move them - I arranged this for my parent. If I hadn’t, the agency would have pointed it out to me and/or helped arrange it.

Meals on wheels are good. Mum.has them 3 days a week and as pp said,it means someone is going in on these days. On Mondays her friend comes and they have a sandwich and cake lunch, and on Fridays she goes to her old biddies class where she gets a cooked lunch

Very jealous of the meals on wheels. Sadly my mum’s area don’t do them. No private suppliers either.

This is Home Instead. They’ve just got very expensive and the carers are often very young and on their phones when I come in, while my mum was upstairs (that one has.now left) One was 78 herself and not at all on the ball. As I said before, one is outstanding .

We already have the thing with the council where they collect the outside bins without us putting them out, it’s the getting the rubbish put in the outside bin that’s the issue.

Im just trying to get my head around what is normal. It’s costing mum a fortune and running her savings down a bit.

I know the thing you mean. It’s a possibility I can look into.

You’re not detailing. It’s a good question. I don’t think there is, but I could be wrong. They’d need criminal record checks and references, I’d think, if you were hiring privately.

I had a carer come in when I had surgery. She would make a light breakfast, help me shower and dress, take the rubbish up to the bin if I asked. She couldn't touch my meds. Some were controlled drugs (e.g oromorph) and they weren't allowed to give it to me but they would open the bottle as I couldn't. She was brilliant but long term you would have to employ a cleaner, at least to do light housework and take bins out etc. Carers are very pushed for time and they have to write up their notes within their time. I couldn't fault her though.

You are paying a lot per hour! HI are notoriously expensive as they only service self-funders ie private clients. If you phone around you will find significantly cheaper and companies who will take on 30 or 45 minute calls.
Family prepared medication is not allowed to be given as the carers have no idea what the medication is therefore your mum is classed as self-medicating. You could be putting arsenic tablets in for all they know (of course you aren't) but they and their company would be held responsible by the CQC should they inadvertently cause your mum harm or worse.
As others have said the pharmacy will prepare a sealed blister pack and even deliver. The carers will then be able to give her medication when they visit once it's been documented by the agency and added to the care plan.
You need to be very specific about what you need them to do and I have no idea why they are refusing to do light domestic work/put bins out etc. Sounds rather precious to me.

Cooking is tricky. Even if there was time few of the carers we had could cook English food (so they said) ie pasta, stew, chicken, soup. Even if I left recipes they wouldn't do it. They mostly heated up microwave meals. Meds, they would tell the client to take them but not administer. I also had to get someone to do nails. We had 30-60 min visits topped up by cleaner who would do shopping but it wasa very fiddly patchwork. Bath and hair didn't happen often.

OP is the £36 for two carers?

I have only spoken with one private carer but she charges £20 per hour.

I wouldn't be prepared to pay £21 per hour for what you are prepared to do. There is nothing to putting a bib out. Families pay for carers to save them having to go around themselves but end up having to do it anyway.

Or even a bin* not a bib!

No the £36 is for one carer.

Sorry, posted too soon. They’ve just raised their prices and added a travel charge per visit.

@Caroffee ok that's fine! Im a professional carer of over 13 years. My role is to provide care not a cleaning or rubbish service. I will empty bins from the house to the dustbin but with numerous clients on my books how am I supposed to know or remember when everyone's bins go out? 🙄 or what changed the local authority has made this week.

The council already provide a service for those who can't put their own bins out. The bin men come and take them from where they are stored.

And generally people pay carers to do what they are not able or willing to do for their family @Caroffee.

Look at getting a pivotell for the meds, we have 1 for mum as she forgets which day it is due to alzheimers. With the pivotell she can't take too many and itmakes a sound to remind her. They are about £100 but mum's is on loan from social services. There are 28 slots so twice if her needs are twice a day it only needs filling every 2 weeks.

Hi, yes I get what you’re saying, but I’m not asking them to administer the drugs, just put one day’s box in the place where I normally leave the week’s pill box. Then mum self administers. At the moment they check she’s taken her meds each night. The agency has phoned me twice last week to say she’s taken the wrong day or two day’s meds in one go. I’m just trying to evade that. (we may be at the stage where meds do need administering).

Re the bins, they’re not refusing to put them out, it’s just frequently forgotten. And our bins are on a three week cycle, so if the paper bin is forgotten it’s another 3 weeks until it goes again… And the food bin gets smelly if it doesn’t get put out.

I leave a list of what bins go out when and write it on the calendar too.

Never heard of those, I’ll look into it, thanks.