Older people's home care breaching human rights

[wideawakenurse]

here

Dreadful, dreadful.

This is very personal to me, I have specialised in older peoples nursing for the last 10 years.

There needs to be a very honest conversation about caring for older people, who should be doing it, what skills are needed etc and what leadership and management is required to make it happen.

On the whole I refuse to buy into the whole issue that its about time, or rather a lack of. The issues that were raised in the report were around rudeness, abuse, lack of dignity etc. I think that with 17 years nursing experience I am in a good position to say that lack of time and workload are not the only reasons for this.

I so wish the government would listen to experienced HCP's who would know how to make this right.

What would help is getting the older person to live with a family member but WITH carers helping to dress, wash etc.

It's so hard to get these things set up quickly. Family are concerned that they will be left to cope alone which at present they probably will.

It's funny the charities aren't stepping in at all. I think that demonstrates what demanding and difficult work it is.

My mother is disabled and has carers come to her house 3x per day.

Home care can be a nightmare. She can not get up in the morning until 10am because that's the first available call. The offered bedtime slot is 8pm but we've made other arrangements.

Over the years, there has been a carer who stole my mum's credit cards, another who gave her headlice (the agency knew she had this but continued to send the carer out) incidents of negligent food hygiene, carers who could barely hide their disgust at carrying out personal care ....

I think the problem is that the carers are so badly paid, so those who apply tend to be unable to find other jobs either due to literacy, employment history or are recent immigrants. I was shocked when a carer told me that they are not paid petrol money or the travelling time between calls - so if they have to travel for 20 mins between calls they get nothing.

There have been really good carers but they tend to move on quickly

I'm not sure the answer is living with family tbh. What about families who live a distance away? My mother doesn't want to leave the town she has always lived it. Also given all the previous probs with carers I'd not allow one into my house. My DSs deserve to feel that their house is private.

People who care for our elderly are woefully underpaid.
We as a society should be ashamed of that fact.
But what we shouldn't do is hike the wages up to such an extent degrees are needed before people get the positions.

I worked as a homecarer for about 9 months and saw a lot in that time. I was doing the job in the evenings and on a Saturday. Lots of the work was filling in for the usual carers if they were off sick.
So lots of the clients were totally new to me.
Many of them were amazed that I actually cleaned them and did the other things that were in their care manual.
Most of the time, they did not get what they were supposed to have.

In the end I left as management were only interested in getting as much out of the workers and after a few months of having to get a 98yr old lady up at 6am in the morning because it was the only slot available, I had enough.

It is good that they are going to inspect these private home care companies and it's a long time coming

I know I am going to get flamed for this but I have to say this....I think the problem comes when we think the "state" has a responsibility for us, no matter what the larger family circumstances.

I say this as a life long socialist and Labour Party supporter.

Too often families give up on their elders. And mistakenly they expect that the state can afford to give them the same support that could be given by family members.

Am not arguing against a welfare provision, nor state help.

It is outrageous the cases that come out of the media at the moment. It should be, and is illegal.

I am not defending it for one minute and appreciate the awful agony so many families face.

But I know of too many middle class families who completely absolve the responsibiltiy of elder care on to the state.

a lot of families can't care for elderly families members as they are already caring for someone else. so that is not always the answer. also due to smaller houses there often isn't the room.
perhaps if there was more support for carers you might get more taking on the task, at present the government treat cares(I am talking about family members not paid carers) like scum, so expecting people to take this on is just wrong.
caring for someone with no support/ no respite/ no money is bloody hard, just look in the sn topic and you will see this. so that will never work.
the government should stop cutting money that the vulnerable need, they should offer more money to support carers, then perhaps more old people would be able to stay with their families.
they have the money, they just choose to spend it on crap schemes

agree with sevenfold there should be much for help for carers.