Carers paying for MIL’s food

[abovetheweather]

MIL’s council is about to take over all aspects of her care needs at home. They will now be doing her food and sundry shopping.

The problem: I need to find a way to allow MIL’s carers to pay for her weekly shopping, but I am coming unstuck with options. We are only able to visit her once a month. We live a 5-6 hour round trip away. The options seem to be:

—Santander Carer Card (has to be a named person, but MIL’s carers are on shift so we don’t know who will be shopping)
—Starling (can only be used personally, not for online shopping)
— Supermarket gift cards - loaded with a month’s money
—Cash in the house for a month.

The carer’s cannot use online supermarket shopping because of use-by dates - if food is out of date, they are not allowed to serve it. Therefore it is a manual job to visit a supermarket to choose food (largely ready meals) that will stay in date for at least a week.

Anything we’ve missed? Thank you so much 🙏

Carers will almost never deal with money like that due to potential for accusations of stealing. Can you or DH not do a regular online shop for your MIL and have it delivered direct to them?

Age uk can help with shopping

Ambient ready-meal delivery from Parsley Box and supermarket online order for everything else?

Revolut?

Can be used in person and online.

This is what we had to do for mil
Carers made a list of what was needed. I did online shop and had it delivered. Ready meals can generally be frozen and taken out the freezer night before needed

I arranged tesco deliveries to dads home when carers were there.
We tried the ready food deliveries ( Wiltshire Farm Foods) but he wasn't a fan.
He likes Tesco food, and I can add in cleaning stuff etc.,

We use a Halifax Trusted Person card, it’s limited to about £100 shopping a week and £100 cash. No need to name the carer.
https://www.halifax.co.uk/helpcentre/support-and-wellbeing/someone-to-manage-your-affairs/types-of-access.html

What do the council say to do? This can’t be the first time this situation has happened.

Oh wow - thank you thank you. This looks exactly the right thing.

The council should have a strategy for how this will.work if they are bringing it in. They are the one delivering the service and need ti keep their staff free of the risk of accusation - accusation of innocent people by older people is a very common symptom of dementia.

I suspect this has happened because carers are turning up to fridges full of out of date food! Not necessarily your loved one but morr generally.

My Auntie had Wiltshire Farm foods delivered ready meals as she needed them. They can be frozen. The delivery man used to bring them, leave one out and put rest in her freezer for her. They have a really wide choice. She also had a pub delivery her a roast meal on a Sunday.

We bought long life meals from ParsleyBox for my mother in law and my mum when they had dementia and couldn’t manage use by dates any more. That took all the hassle out of having to check expiry dates of fresh ready meals and other fresh food. The ParsleyBox meals didn’t need to be kept in a fridge and had use by dates for several month ahead. Would it not be acceptable to the council for the food to be delivered to you, and then you could take it with you when you visit each month? You could then leave a smaller amount of cash available for the carers to use for purchases of perishable things like milk and other things.

Thank you all - I have the answer I need - Halifax Trusted Person card. We will link to a personal account (which we’ll need to open) and then it can be left in MIL’s house for any carer to use in store as a card or withdraw cash (in total up to £200 per week). Thank you so much.

Thank you all - I have the answer I need - Halifax Trusted Person card. We will link to a personal account (which we’ll need to open) and then it can be left in MIL’s house for any carer to use in store as a card or withdraw cash (in total up to £200 per week). Thank you so much

I don't want to pour cold water on this but have you checked they're allowed to,
or even want to be responsible for this? My mil's carers were not allowed to get involved with cash or cards. Which is why the only option was an online shop.

Fair point. We will ask. My hunch is yes, as they have previously suggested supermarket cards, which are effectively the same thing eg, with a spending limit. They have agreed to handle suitable cards or cash. They have been looking after MIL for five years so know her well too, and vice versa. Thank you!

If your MIL doesn't have much of an appetite, try the children's ready meals. My grandma and great aunt preferred the smaller size, and then still had a biscuit or half a Bakewell slice, or something similar for dessert.

I don’t think carers are able to do this. We do my mum’s shopping online, fully remotely. Could you do that?

I don’t think carers are able to do this

This is what I think. I've dealt with carers for 3 relatives at different times, (dropped unlucky there) and this was just not an option. None of them were allowed to deal with finance - cash or card or anything. These were also long term carers 6+ years although one or other of them changed from time to time.
(team of 5/6)
None of them could even be responsible for shopping let alone handling money.
It's too risky from their point of view. It's surprising what can go wrong however well you know someone and they have to protect themselves.

My experience is one of online shopping, long life milk, and wiltshire fanr foods. We haven't been able to get the carers to do shopping.

Care companies usually do support food shopping and will have a system for sharing receipts with their managerial team (we use the Access app which has a dedicated financial transaction form and capacity for the carer to upload a photo of the receipt). We have been advised not to handle cards however, just cash. Obviously if the client can come to the shops with their carer and have capacity then they can use their own card.

For the majority of our house-bound clients without family nearby, a weekly supermarket shop timed for a carer visit, supplemented with shopping for a small number of top up items like milk when they pass their sell by date works well. Especially if combined with something like Wiltshire Farm Foods which have long use-by dates.

If your mother’s care is LA funded, will the carers have time to personally shop for all her food without neglecting other care tasks? Wonderful if they do, I just know around us that funded time is at a premium and it’s a massive fight to get longer than 30 min visits for personal care etc

I would say as someone who relies on a big Tesco order weekly to feed my family, I find almost everything has a sell-by date of at least a week (except a tiny number of items like humous, raw meat/ fish or ready meals. I’m sure it would be easier to do a weekly online shop, keep a Wiltshire farm food stockpile and then leave cash for ad hoc top ups