Live-in carers

[Whattheheckcarer]

We are having a problem finding live-in carers - could anyone please recommend?

what area are you in?

Live in carers are hard to find fullstop.

Have you contacted any of the live-in care agencies?

I have a friend who advertises in The Lady magazine with lots of others. She lives in doing respite, covers family holidays etc she travels all over England. Worth a look x

The Lady is the place to look.
Put your own advert in.

We rang round the private agencies. That way there were references. We only had one at a time so DH had to be there overnight as, obviously, the carers need to sleep. Christmas week was difficult. Eventually care was provided so we had to go with the Social services recommended agencies. At the time we didn't know how long the situation would go on so felt we couldn't continue to pay out of pocket . As it turned out it would easily have been covered by the value of the house and we would have had a little more control if we had been paying privately. All the carers were kind but they were a bit of a mixed bag in terms of skills. They were not very well treated by the agency although we tried our best in a stressful situation eg with a car , TV, shopping, Netflix etc.
A family member has had to cover the cost of two for their elderly parents which has come close to the value of their house .

If it is just cooking cleaning company etc there are agencies such as Country Cousins that can help.

You could also try this site
https://www.curamcare.com/

Thanks for allnthe replies. Companies like Country Cousins have some terrible reviews though

HomeInstead or The Lady. Which area, someone might have personal experience

Had some pretty dodgy conversations with some people from The Lady - people saying they'd never been asked to get DBS checked before etc.

From experience, it's a nightmare and a lottery. I wouldn't recommend any of the agencies we used, in fact I'd warn against them. There's a Facebook group where you can find self-employee live in carers (I'll try to find it) but you'll only have your own judgement on whether they are trustworthy. However I didn't find the agencies filtered out the unsafe, heavy drinkers, unwell people anyway. They just charge huge fees.

It's Live In Carers UK.

Thing is, the number of people willing to be live in carers is quite low. It can be a tough and isolating job, and doesn't work for people who have families of their own.

Then it's also very competitive to get a good live in carer. My DM started out by putting an ad in The Lady - but all her subsequent jobs came by word of mouth. And she could afford to be very picky about where she worked - a nice house with an annexe was a minimum.

Thing is, the number of people willing to be live in carers is quite low. It can be a tough and isolating job, and doesn't work for people who have families of their own.

Then it's also very competitive to get a good live in carer. My DM started out by putting an ad in The Lady - but all her subsequent jobs came by word of mouth

I think your first sentence should read the number of qualified and good people willing to be live in carers is quite low. There are in fact lots of people willing to do it who are unqualified and desperate.

You have to be very careful if you are recruiting yourself because there are a sector of people who see it as a way to get free accomodation, no bills and food paid for. As you an imagine this sector is not people who have a lot of financial choice or see caring as a vocation.

I placed an advert and had lots of replies but lots of them were people who were unqualified. There were a lot of foreign nationals (especially from Nigeria it seemed - not joking!) with no experience and no evidence of a right to work - with African addresses and phone numbers who were looking for some kind of visa I think. There were people who lived abroad and funded their life by coming to the UK to live in care for a few months at a time. It was extraordinary really.

Many people I have spoken to have said they found good people by using agencies and when they found a good person making them an offer to hire them directly. So if an agency is charging £50 an hour and the poor worker is getting £10.42 an hour, if you say to the worker come and work for me for £15 an hour, its a win win except for the agency. most of them have penalties for hiring staff (stealing their employees as they see it) directly but lots of people do it on the hush hush. You do need to make sure the worker is insured though or if you are formally employing them that is all dealt with correctly.

In our area some of the local agencies will also offer live in care, your council website will have information on agencies available locally.

Vanguard Care has some great carers. I think they all struggle to keep good staff though.

Go to some of your local churches. The parish administrator may know of some people or agencies. Church attracts an elderly audience as well as kind volunteers. We found some excellent people this way. Truly angels on earth.

HomeInstead despite the recommendations was absolutely awful. 100% fuckery. Horrible people who were nasty DM and damaged her house deliberately.

I’m sure they’re not all like that but we got some seriously bad carers from there.

Interesting ... where were the carer's from?

HomeInstead, big national care agency that has supposedly a good reputation- but they were awful with us.

What area?
We used a very good local agency, for immediate post hospital care needs
But struggled with agencies for a permanent position availability. Lots of not for a few months, you should have enquired earlier.
In desperation I started randomly asking if anyone who locally had live in for their elders, could ask their carers if they could recommend someone they knew or has worked with, as many do split shifts or cover holidays for others.
We struck gold with out second call after that, and she was amazing.

Try Christie’s

may I ask why you want live in carers ?

Have you thought about having 2-3 carers over the whole 24hrs ? That's how we did it with Mum.

A live in carer will be either available during the night or at night, not both.

HomeInstead despite the recommendations was absolutely awful. 100% fuckery. Horrible people who were nasty DM and damaged her house deliberately.

HomeInstead, big national care agency that has supposedly a good reputation- but they were awful with us.

@JaffaCake24 @Whattheheckcarer

I know someone who used HomeInstead who also had a bad experience. She said to me they were a lot of young people who didnt really engage with the person they were caring for and were abrupt and lacking common sense. I think the thing is that this will be the problem with any national care agency.

The problem with using any agency is that it is very hit and miss. Caring as a sector is hugely understaffed and low paid (this is one of the advantages of trying to engage someone directly - that you can pay a bit more to them, less than you pay to an agency so potentially can get someone better). It has a high staff turn over.

What you want is someone who is experienced, properly trained and sees caring as a vocation and is something you enjoy.

too many of the staff are people who are not suited to caring, are just desperate for any work at all and its just a job for now. So instead of being kind and caring and treating your loved one as they would their own grandparents, they see the whole thing as something to be rushed through, abruptly and off they go.

Its the difference between some taking care to gently handle and clean someone, explain to them what they are doing as they go and take it slowly and carefully versus Someone who is just in a rush, wants to get it done, isn't exactly rough but not careful and slaps on the cream and off they go. It can make a big difference because a lack of care can mean people are left wet after cleaning and not properly dry, skin breaks and so one which can lead to more problems.

Also it is unusual to get younger people who are actually good carers because - understandably - they have no real life experience of aging or any true understanding of the position of a person who needs care. That's not to say they dont exist ( by they I mean young people who are good carers) because they do - but they are rare and tend to be people with personal family experiences that have lead to their interest in care.