Carers charging for 30 minutes but only working 15-20 minutes - is this normal for care?

[ImissSpangles]

I am not sure if this is a normal thing to expect from care or not.

Mum lives with my dad, she has dementia and is incontinent. Last year we employed a team of carers to help mum.

They are all self employed but work together as a team, so not an actual care company. In retrospect we absolutely should have gone with a company because things can often become a bit too fragmented for my liking, for example I have to pay everyone individually, they insist on being paid weekly, I would have preferred monthly but they don't want that. Tbh, we had to rush about finding these carers a year ago after mum had come out of a long hospital stay and the NHS discharge carers let us down. It was all frantic at the time and very stressful. Looking back at it all a care company would have been a much better fit.

Anyhow, the carers come three times a day, around 9.30am to get mum up, put on the loo and showered/dressed, then again after lunch for a toilet break and again at 7pm to put mum to bed. They come in pairs and charge £26 per hour and £20 per half hour. This is 7 days a week.

However, they will often only do 15-20 minutes during the afternoon and evening visit and will round their charge to the nearest half hour. I am usually at my parents for the afternoon visit and I have never known them to ever do a full half hour.

I have no idea if this is normal practice for carers? I asked on a Subreddit and was piled upon by some people saying that it's poor enough money as it is and the carers have to consider travel expenses etc. I am a self employed cleaner and when I tell my clients that I am doing an hour, I will do the full hour, I have also incorporated the cost of my travel into my fee as this isn't my clients concern (and my fee is a lot less than the carers).

Does anyone else have private carers for a parent and do they do this? Maybe it is normal, I honestly don't know?

I'd do the same and I do with the elderly clients I clean for, I don't have to do that, obviously but as you say many older people are so lonely and a quick cuppa and chat often goes a long way for them.

Thank you, thankfully they have all they ate entitled to. I made sure of that as soon as mum got her diagnosis.

I've just come off the phone after my chat with the lovely Admiral dementia nurse. She agrees we are spending out quite a bit for care costs and says that getting SS in for a full care assessment is needed and we should also ask them if we could get a CHC checklist done by a professional (not sure who could do that for mum though). She says it is hard to get but with mum's other health issues it may be a possibility and at least worth getting the checklist done if nothing else.

She also recommended we get a few care companies in to assess mum and get some quotes from them and she also recommends looking at sit in services for mum and she has given me the details of our local care support charity.

She couldn't find a lot in our area which is ridiculous seeing that our town is now supposed to be a city and we are only an hour's train journey to London. We aren't exactly out in the sticks but there isn't a lot in our area for dementia patients either but maybe that's a countrywide issue?

Good advice from the nurse. Social services can do a Chc assessments in conjunction with a health professional. It’s very hard to get that funding though. It would make sense for both to have care with one agency. Also question whether that care can be provided by a single carer. They probably don’t need double handed care unless they can’t weight bear.

I think it would have been the same with a private company and you would probably have had to pay more.
I assume there this a minimum charge which is £20 whether they stay for 10 minutes or 30. So in effect it is up to 30 minutes not a flat 30 minutes. Anything over 30 minutes they would charge the hourly rate even if they only stayed 40 minutes.
Do you think your mum needs the carers for the full half hour? If you are there and your dad is there they probably think your mum doesn't need them to come in and chat with her they might worry they are being intrusive.
If you think your mum isn't getting the care she needs and she needs the full half hour you should raise it with them but if you think she is getting the care she needs and if she and your dad are happy with that I don't think you should raise it .

Thank you. I will definitely ask about the two carer issue,um can get out of bed and her recliner and can walk, albeit slowly with her frame.

So many things wrong here.
Quietly carry on with getting the ss assessment done and talking to other care companies.
Switch over asap.

If you’ve got Home Instead locally, in general I hear and see good things about them - worth getting a quote.

We had this with a care company with my DM. There were granny cameras in the flat so knew how long they were there. I spoke to the manager and she agreed that the carer should spend the time with DM even if it was just a friendly chat. She lived alone though and the contact was invaluable.
I hope you have a better experience with a new set of carers.

This is the norm. Most care
companies have it written into the fine print of the contract. Realistically they have to factor in time to get from one client to the next, usually 10 mins. If you actually want a full then they wouldn’t be able to service as many people during the day which means they would need to charge you more per visit. Can’t have it both ways.

We had carers at home, they’d turn up and ask what wanted doing “oh I’m fine, I don’t need any help” and off they’d go. Still sent the bill for half an hour though and there was lots that could have been done as the patient really wasn’t fine!
A fall, ironically just after the carers left, resulted in a hospital stay and we then got them a place in a home. I think home carers work okay if the person has enough sharpness left to know what they’re there for and what wants doing, but once there’s cognitive decline its a different kettle of fish.

Totally agree and this was our experience too. Home is much better.

They are one of the companies we are considering. A lady we know uses them and they are very helpful.

But as I've said in my replies a) we don't have a contract with them and this was never mentioned in the beginning and b) in the afternoon they have no other clients to go to after visiting my mum.

Having to pay each one individually would be a deal breaker for me. Too much work. No contract so ? Are they insured? You HAVE to change to a different provider.

SS I am sure will give you some ideas. Get yourself a list of priorities -

You can ask if rates change over weekends etc. For us some sounded cheaper but when they charged double time, less so.

You can ask what hours they work. We looked for a provider who would come later at bedtime. Parents would not accept 7:30 pm bedtime.

You might ask about having local teams so parents get used to just a few carers.

When it comes to putting together a task list for each visit, you might add “if time allows at the end of the visit, mum would welcome a chat”. Thus no one can say “we finished”

TBh we felt that we were meticulously prepared but things needed to be pointed out. One of my complaints was that when the regular carer was off no one switched on the washing machine. They popped soiled clothes in the machine but never turned it on. At times it seemed like they were teenagers waiting for the house elf to come and sort things out. They could not have expected Mum to get up and do it!

I am sure that you have other priorities. First you need the meds in place and then personal hygiene - then the rest of a long list.

Good luck - but come back with any more questions, you are not alone

I have no experience of this, but from Googling around I think that you could get software that generates a QR code for clocking in and out. You could say that this is for security

Thank you so much. This has been such a steep learning curve for us. One moment I was raising my own children, they just step into early adulthood and suddenly I’m back to caring, organising and sorting out others people’s issues.

We went about this all wrongly. I can’t believe we just put all of our trust into strangers. They say they are insured and have all the relevant training etc but hand on heart I’ve never seen any documentation and it’s feels too embarrassing to ask a year on.

Hopefully the SS wait won’t be long and we can get as much advice from them as possible.

Oh, I didn’t know that, thanks. I will have a look.

I'm a home carer working for a company.
We use a QR code to log in and have a list of tasks to complete.
I'm fast, but conscientious worker and generally have 5 minutes left at the end of my visit.
I do the laundry, mop floors or change the bed for example.
All the staff know that questions will be asked if we log out early.
I also do a 2 hour and 4 hour sit with 2 separate clients to enable family members or spouses some respite or just to get some shopping.

Work out how many 10-15 mins they haven’t worked but have been paid for and then speak to them about it. They are basically stealing from your parents!! This will work out as many many hours over the year they are stealing!!

We use Home Instead, they do the full hour we pay for and there are only 3 or 4 regular carers so all familiar faces. Expensive but no hassle :)

your fee is a lot less than £13 per hour including travel?
you’d be better off getting another job…

my mistake I thought you meant that was for both, not each.

Sorry, got irritated and stopped reading at your had to have a 7pm comment.

I mean yeah, when it comes to mornings and evenings - ofc someone has to have the first bed time and someone has to have the last wake up. But you're paying good money and feel like you 'have' to have it because they have people after?

Please, for your sanity, mums safety, dads money - find a new place or people.

There is soo many good carers out there and as I said, I've not read past that comment because I'm easily emotional/annoyed when it comes to some topics, but not everyone is a 5 minute rush in rush out.

I've had clients who demand I leave because they don't want carers. A gentle,

• ok sure I will but do you mind if I just write in the book real quick?
• Wanna sit why I do this, could take me a few minutes?
• Shall i just make you a cup of tea since I'll be a few minutes
• ooh whilst I'm out here did you want some of this cake? sandwich?
• Aww no I made the mess let me wash it up.
• Ooh I almost forgot about this book!

ill be back around 8, sorry to bother your afternoon, catch you soon

rinse and repeat, every day if needed.

I've also seen the be at zyx at 5.15-5.45 and then be across town at 5.45-615, it happens - you gotta stick up for your parents here if dad doesnt wanna rock the boat and you feel it's not right, change it. I know its effort going through companies or people but it's your mum, I also know your not saying they are horrible people doing a horrible job, but you clearly know they could be doing more - and that's ok, call them out on it.

You got this.

Thank you. I have to admit that I really don't like the idea of mum being put to bed at 7pm especially in the summertime and dad says he feels quite lonely all evening, even though mum doesn't talk he just likes her there beside him.

I hope SS will come within the next few weeks so we can get the ball rolling as such and start consulting with care companies.

I'm also a cleaner and if you think about it, this is ALSO the most common complaint that people have about cleaners that come from agencies. They try to cut corners to ensure they don't do more than they are paid for.

In our family, we found a carer from an agency who was interested in us paying her £25ph to provide care. She was getting paid £14ph from her agency who we were paying £29ph. It was an informal arrangement and privately funded but that was how we got my Uncle decent care.