V basic question - care package and housekeeping

[DierdreDaphne]

So we're completely new to this bu mum (91 and previously mobile if frail, so mostly independent) has broken her shoulder and hospital are arranging for her to go home with a 4xdayx1 carer care package.

What generally happens with housekeeping/laundry etc? Mum has a cleaner but only every 2 weeks, does her own diahes, orders and unpacks shopping delivery own laundry etc.

The annoying person from the care provider started to say 'next of kin will deal with shopping' - I had to say no no we can't were not there! (1 & 3 hours away!).

So what usually happens? My guess is they would expect her to survive on 100% ambient food until she can either sort it herself or make other arrangements? But what about washing up and laundry?? Aaargh this is all very obscure and it's so hard ro get a straight answer from anyone!

Sorry this is so garbled, a reflection of my brain right now 😵‍💫

Shopping and laundry are not personal care responsibilities so she either needs a cleaner who is willing to do this work or yes family do it. Where there is no family a home help is needed but it’s chargeable

how often can family get there - can the closer person stock the freezer and fridge fortnightly? Whilst not everything has a long shelf life, the carers will only heat a micro meal, pour cereal or make a sandwich typically. Bread freezes well, apples are longer life than most fruit, she can have ambient snacks where she can reach them

Can you up the cleaner to weekly visits and order shopping online for delivery when the cleaner is there? If the cleaner can’t also take on laundry then a laundry collection and delivery service might be useful.

Is her package a reablement package or a long term care package ?

You could also look into meals on wheels (chargeable) provided by your city council. In my area they will deliver a hot lunch including hot dessert & a cold plated tea. Or just the midday meal if that's what they prefer.

The NHS appointed carers will probably only do personal care and perhaps cooking a meal and helping her eat it (if there is time). Find out exactly what her care plan will cover. Then you have two choices;

either point out to the hospital it won't be enough; that she has no food in the house and no way of getting it, or of washing up etc. in which case she will have to stay put or go into a home for a while.

Or she/you can employ a different care company to do cleaning, tidying, laundry and shopping. Not all care companies do these sorts of tasks and it'll likely be those that have a high proportion of privately-funded clients. There are also some companies that actually only do these tasks and stop short of providing personal care.

On a practical note all these things would help:
paper plates and disposable cutlery,
meals on wheels,
ready meals delivered or from supermarket, (eat straight out of the tray to save washing up.
Supermarket grocery delivery - the Tesco and Sainsburys drivers will help put stuff away for disabled customers and you can set up an account for her and do the weekly shop.
Service wash at launderette may be cheaper than paying carers to do it and sometimes there are even people who will collect and deliver.

In my experience the short term care packages post discharge from hospital - often termed reablement or Discharge to Assess, generally provided by NHS or local authority, won't do laundry or housework beyond washing up that day's dishes. They might pop the sheets in the machine if for example there was an issue with continence but they wouldn't stick around to hang up/dry it. You'd need a private carer or cleaner for that.

Talk to AgeUK- in some hospitals they have a 'hospital to home' service. They go in (free of charge) once a week to do the shopping, help with laundry etc. It is a fantastic service!

Increase cleaner days and hours - once every week. Will cleaner do laundry also if paid for longer hours?

I would suggest whoever lives 1hr away goes the next few weekends. 1hr isn’t much. They take some pre cooked meals for freezer, and have food shop arrive whilst they are there to help put away

The 3hr away family need to see if they can go up and help. Maybe they help more with online shop, and looking up other local help. And consider can go down for a weekend?

Reablement I believe - as in "a few weeks"?

So many such helpful replies!! I'm so grateful. Unfortunately the 1 hr away daughter is also elderly and disabled to some extent (though does drive).

I will ask about hospital -to-home. I think mum is willing to buy in help as it will allow things to be more 'as she likes them' but she doesn't want to pay for things that will be happening anyway. I have a so much better picture now!

And yes we will both visit but even though elderly we are also both still working! WFH is a boon for the doddery...

Reablement care is just short term, so there will be another assessment where it’s decided if mum needs ongoing care (and if so who pays) at which point it will switch to another company, or a few weeks of reablement may be enough.

Reablement is usually only personal care so yes a family member will need to put something in place for laundry and shopping, although carers will heat up a meal.

you could look at upping the cleaner to weekly so they can put the shopping away if delivered or swapping to a home help instead.

meal wise either supermarket delivery’s but carers really will only ping meals or do cereal/toast. You could look at Wiltshire farm food delivery’s (if you have a key safe they are dbs checked and will p
Put away etc) or meals on wheels type organisations are great.

Get wiltshire farm foods or similar delivered. Easily heated but more like a proper meal. There will then only be the odd cup or bowl to wash up.

Is there any neighbours who can help also? My grandfather neighbours took over putting his bins out for him for example.

I would say easiest option now if she’s happy to pay is increasing cleaner. I assume it’s same person so she knows them anyway and they can continue as usual but increase to include laundry and bed change and anything else weekly. Even without injury, at 90 she’s slowly going to need more help with heavy lifting things like changing bedding.

Then if you or sister can go down weekends you both have time to help with other stuff or take her out and about to do fun stuff and not just laundry

m and s finest ready meals are good

As previously said, the carers will just be there to help to dress and shower her, and possibly provide a quick meal.

As she already has a cleaner one option would be to ask if she can come in 2 or 3 times a week until your mother is recovered enough to do tasks herself. You could arrange an online shopping order for her when the cleaner is there and can unpack it.

My mother paid privately for carers and they would do whatever she wanted, so that is another option (we used Home Instead). As well as personal care they did housework, went shopping, did the laundry, cooked meals - anything she needed. Obviously to do all this they needed a reasonable time slot each day, a lot longer than the brief care visits provided by the local authority.

This is all so helpful. I think she already gets some Wiltshire type meals - knowing the delivery people are dbs checked is a fantastic bonus info. It would be great to have that covered. Yes I think she can ask the cleaner to come more often and as suggested earlier, have someone come in for longer than the minimum to prepare nicer meals/ help her move about more/ etc

Supermarket delivery services will often do a deliver to the kitchen counter type arrangement if you dig into those details.

If it were me and I lived 2 hours away and worked full time, I would visit on the weekend and plan to spend half a day there - during that time, I would do some food prep, laundry, put away an online shop and any other tasks the carers aren’t employed to do. I actually did this for my MIL for a few months before she went into long term care, whilst DH did the laundry and took her out to her favourite cafe for lunch.
Your DM is likely feeling very fed up and so a longer visit might perk her up.

Oh we will absolutely be visiting and probably staying over each time we do (like we do anyway) but she is very clear she wants predictable daily 'cover', so trying to work out what to expect in a very new situation.

Everyone's replies have been so helpful!

This was a great tip - we contacted her usual supermarket delivery people and it's now already sorted!

Do consider cameras in the house if you have people coming in to deliver stuff. A food delivery driver from a company that does DBS checks on their drivers stole from my FIL this year. Fortunately we caught it all on camera and he is being charged so at least that will now show up on a DBS check.

Groceries was a major hurdle for me.

LA funded carers (Scotland) wouldn't sort as despite doing meal prep ensuring food was in the house wasn't part of their role. They wouldn't even text me a list of what was needed, or a photograph of the fridge.

EPICF (elderly person I care for) was no longer able to give me a cogent shopping list. Nor could they reliably put grocery deliveries away and it was really difficult to time a delivery to when her cleaner was there to put it away. I suspect sometimes food deliveries sat for ages , then got put in fridge which might have contributed to the GI upset I mentioned below.

Sounds like this might not be such an issue for you - I also cared for my Gran which was much easier as I did an online supermarket shop for her weekly. She would tell me what she needed on the phone and then put it away when it arrived.

EPICF also had no idea re expiry dates and LA funded carers didn't intervene or steer her so they would let her "choose" to eat all of the emergency ambient ready meals rather than the fresh ones that were in the fridge or eat the fresh ones in the wrong order thus ending up with some at end of week that were out of date. Then there would be a crisis as there were no ready meals left despite the fact that I'd bought enough plus the ambient spares. I know it's important to respect autonomy but sometimes you just have to have spaghetti bolognese for tea as otherwise it's going to go out of date and be wasted!

Nor did the LA carers reliably date stuff that spoils once opened when they opened it eg. cooked meats. To try to deal with this I put a big notice on the fridge asking them to do so and placed stickers/ sharpies by the fridge. It made no difference.

This meant that when it was really difficult to tell what was Ok to eat and what wasn't. I used to just chuck stuff out if I wasn't sure but I think when the carers changed over (they tended to do 3 days on, X days off) some dodgy stuff got used as when at home EPICF used tor regularly have an upset stomach. She hasn't had one since she move moved into residential care which presumably has better food hygiene oversight.

Cleaner (2 x week) tried to keep on top of shopping/ expiry dates but things kept getting missed and then I'd get moany messages from the LA carers about the lack of food. Cleaner did do all laundry (sometimes I think taking it home as it was easier for her than waiting for the shiny new but very slow/ eco friendly dryer she hated at EPICF's house to finish). A flexible cleaner is worth their weight in gold. Best to have their allegiance to you and not to cared for person though as then they don't feel guilty about passing on info that's useful like the cooker being left on. The cleaner we haven isn't the best cleaner but she is super reliable and caring and for me that's what matters. She continues to look after the empty house, and "spoil" me with home baking/ clean sheets if she knows I'm going up. It makes big difference.

EPICF meanwhile would maintain to people during assessments that they were doing all their own shopping via Tesco home delivery/ going into the shop. It took me months to work out she wasn't doing her laundry as she kept telling me she was.

Does the cleaner want more work? Or have a friend who does?

My DM's cleaner has led to a whole word of mouth network of gardeners, handymen, carers and shoppers.

I've not read all replies but just to say I'm a carer and we can do all these things if it's required within the package including personal care, shopping, housework, laundry etc.

Maybe look at a care company for personal care then maybe more of a support worker type company that can cover the other tasks if you can't find an all in one.

My company has branches all over the UK with a minimum of at least a 1 hour visit., nothing less. Possibly in your area. Pm me if your interested and I can give you their name.

I dont gain from this post in any way btw, I'm in Scotland! 😆