This is a company that provides live in care for elderly people. My father is unable to look after himself because he has severe dementia and my mother, who is his primary carer, is due to have her knee replaced in the near future. She will be in hospital for four days and will need care afterwards as well.

Does anyone have any experience of this company and if so what can you tell me about them? My main concerns are around getting good care for my father especially as he is very vulnerable and unable to be his own advocat if anything bad were to happen.

Not heard of Elder Care, but we use HomeInstead for Mum in Law when she was imobile and before she went into a care home – they seemed to do a good job, living in, for a few weeks, and they continue to provide additional support for her now she’s in a care home.

As an alternative why not book your dad into a respite care home for a bit of a holiday. I have elderly neighbours who use care homes as holiday destinations for a few weeks at a time.

Just commenting as I have an interest in this. FIL has a live in carer currently, but she isn’t going to be able to do it indefinitely. Our experience of care elsewhere (respite for the live in carer) so far is not good TBH 🙁

I suspect a lot of people on here will have a vested interest in this subject. Thanks for the responses so far. My main concern I think is probably driven by the fact that he will be on his own with this live in carer and it will be very hard for anyone to have oversight on the situation. That makes me really nervous not least when you consider the horrible stories about abuse in care homes that have emerged recently.

Almost certainly my brother and I will end up staying up there with him as well as the carer and working from home there (which we can do).

If they are registered with the CQC (which they should be) you can look them up on the CQC website. Will tell you what you need to know

I work at the sharp end of health and social care and although I’m no expert, the Care Quality Commission are very stringent in regulating care providers.
You should be able to look up a CQC report for any provider online.

There have been horror stories recently, but these are incredibly rare and IMO these cases have only served to improve the standards

Thanks Nick and Yunki – I was hoping someone involved directly in the health care profession would comment. Very helpful.

As with all care providors its all about profit and saving money,you pay your money up front and hope to get good care givers and good supportive management to look at complaints and do something about them.

Check what the actual fees and hours are,ask about staff coverage if the usual care giver is on holiday or on a course, ask if the parent will have a dedicated care giver or a pooled resource, ask for details of training and skills of the care givers, what are the cancelation terms, days weeks or months,been there done it and failed to a certain degree.

Private care providers are very much cost driven. They pay the staff very poorly so its the usual pay peanuts get monkeys

I have heard the name of this company but cannot remember the context

I assume you are doing this as a private payer not council funded. If so I would be interviewing the staff they are going to send to you myself and I would be insisting on the same staff for each visit

TJ it’s actually to cover a period when my mother will be in hospital having a knee replacement and then convalescing at home so the carer will live in.

Ah

Self funded? when you say live in do you mean 24/7 one person or different people doing sleepovers?

I would still be insisting on personally interviewing the person / people who are going to do the care as well s the managers of the outfit and I would be looking at more than one outfit.

My experience of home care providers is only council funded ones – and is pretty poor. The good staff leave quickly due to the appalling pay and conditions. continuity is a real issue

Is there a social worker involved / assessment made of your fathers needs? I would also seriously consider covert cameras

Can you not take leave from work to at least supervise?

Can you not take leave from work to at least supervise?

I think almost certainly that is what my brother and I will do; between us we can cover this as like you suggest, the idea of having no oversight worries the heck out of me.

Yes this is self funded; I’m not sure my mum is aware of any alternative though more recently she has started to get help from social services.

Thanks for your advice TJ, greatly appreciated.

You could almost certainly get social services help for your dad in this situation. this would be limited to 4x a day half hour visits tho and you would have no choice over who and when. For a physical disability I would suggest your dad went into a care home that does respite – however for people with dementia this is not a good option at all.

If you have the money then self funding gets you better care no doubt at all. It is very expensive tho – 24/7 care will cost a lot and beware sleepovers are now seen as working time.

Hiya,

geetee1972

Almost certainly my brother and I will end up staying up there with him as well as the carer and working from home there (which we can do).

Just for your own peace of mind it’s a good idea, at least until you and you’re parents are happy that the care package is suitable.

They pay the staff very poorly so its the usual pay peanuts get monkeys

Patronising, insulting bollocks.

this would be limited to 4x a day half hour visits tho and you would have no choice over who and when.

Not true.
The care package should be tailored to the needs of the individual, especially times of visits etc.

however for people with dementia this is not a good option at all.

There are excellent care homes specialising in dementia care.
Many care homes will have residents with dementia and staff should be trained appropriately.
Not everyone with dementia would be suited to such a placement, but many people are.
Depends on the individual and their needs.

and beware sleepovers are now seen as working time.

Why shouldn’t they be?

Rusty. Have you any actual experience of home care? Home care companies who work for social services pay minimum wage or a tiny bit more with no pay for travelling time. In Edinburgh where I live they simply cannot recruit enough staff to provide the service because of this. Its the main reason for “bed blocking” that packages of care cannot be arranged and because its so poorly paid standards of care are low. I know this both from a professional viewpoint and from personal experience of a friend of mine who relied on home care

4x a day half hour visits is the maximum home care councils will fund unless you fight very hard. The reason for this is that more than that costs more than NH care to the councils so if you require more care than 4x a day half hour visits you will be assessed as needing NH care. any night visits are almost impossible to get.

Yes a few care homes do provide decent care for those with dementia. However that is nothing to do with my point that it is proven that for people with dementia leaving their own home for respite is very disruptive because familiarity is very important to people with dementia and going into respite care. Hence the gold standard for people with dementia is respite at home not in care homes. Going into a care home inevitably leads to deterioration in people with dementia as you have removed them from their familiar environment which increases confusion.

This is the world I have worked in professionally for decades. I know this stuff inside out.

I agree sleepovers should be paid as working time. However until a recent court decision which the care providers are still fighting sleepovers were paid as if “on call” not working.

Maybe things are different up in Scotland; but based on my experience here in Wales of assessing and putting packages of care together for families with a family member with dementia … then tjagain is giving some wrong information, and also some bad advice.

Get in touch with social services and ask for an assessment. STW is not the best place for advice on such matters.
Good luck.

What is wrong information and bad advice?

tjagain – Member
Rusty. Have you any actual experience of home care?

6 years, plus 4 years (and counting) in a unit with several dementia patients.
How about you?

I agree with many of your points, but you are being over simplistic.

I agree with many of your points, but you are being over simplistic.

Well I didn’t want to write a phd thesis! Just trying to give the chap some pointers in a simple way.

Me 35 years experience in care of the older adult from running care homes and dementia care units to supporting a friend who was reliant on home care. Just recently I had a discharge home fail because the amount of home care available was completely inadequate

Installing a secret camera from the beginning would be the most obvious; straight away you have given a Daily Mail headline to the op … suggested that abuse is a certainty!
If you can`t see the problem in that then I am struggling to guess what social care professional you have experience as??

Also the 4xhalf hour visits a day … this is most definitely not the default package in such cases.

And lastly – the pay peanuts, and get monkeys comment …

TJ, could you pm me with details of the non NHS dementia units you have been involved in?

And an apology for your utterly ignorant and insulting remark regarding care workers would be appreciated.

tjagain – I also missed the bit about not being able to choose who, when, and what care you get … I guess you don`t know about direct payments? these alone allow a person to design the care to suit themselves; its called personalisation … but I guess you have missed that too.

Mooman – that is the maximum care available in most cases. The only times I have seen more than that was after long battles with the assessors and then its only one or two cases. Do you really provide packages of more than 4 times a day half hour visits on anything other than a very unusual basis?

Ok I’ll apologise for “pay peanuts get monkeys” ( I was tired and grumpy last night and angry because of the collapse of yet another discharge due to crap home care) I get that is insulting to those who try hard in home care) and change it to ” due to low rates of pay for home care, retention and recruitment of staff is very difficult, training for home care staff is inadequate and those staff who try to provide a good service usually end up burnt out and leave”

I am not going to give any details of the care homes I have managed. One 3rd sector Care home, one private care home that worked on council funded patients where the care was simply awful, one high end private care home where the care was barely adequate. I hav e also done agency work in lots of care homes. No relative of mine will ever go into a care home nor will be reliant on council provided home care as my experience of this is simply awful

I have also worked as a co0mmunity nurse and seen first had the inadequate care provided by home care from the council. finding patients in soaking wet beds at 10 am, seeing young people being put to bed at 7 pm as that is the last available visit

The problem is that we do not wish to fund care to a level where care can be adequate.

the current home care system is close to collapse in many parts of the country due to difficulty in recruitment and retention of staff.

A close friend of mine was reliant on home care provided by the council. they had been assessed as requiring the maximum care. 4x daily half hour visits – one by two staff members. No more care than this was available. No visit for 11 hours overnight. She was unkempt, stinking, they stole money, no visit ever lasted the half hour as the staff travel time was not paid. She had a really good carer who resigned in tears because she was unable to provide good care due to the time pressure she was under. That carer actually came to my friends house in her own time simply to try to keep my friend well cared for. So yes good home carers do exist but the system they work under grinds them down.

edit – crossed posts. Yes I know about direct payments system. I didn’t think it would be appropriate in the OPs situation given it takes a long time to set up.

East lothian the average wait for a care package is 12 weeks. 1/3 of all hospital beds in lothians are occupied by people waiting for care packages who are fit for discharge

I accept your apology.

training for home care staff is inadequate

I completely agree with many of your points, but again this is simply untrue.

Stop it with the generalisations.
It’s extremely unhelpful.

Well I guess it makes a change me not being the one to cause the rabid arguing and cat calling 😯

I think everyone is motivated to help in their responses to my original question (indeed, this perfectly sums up the view I’ve always had of most people but in particular of TJ whom I’ve always secretly liked very much despite) and I am grateful for that.

Of course I would always use the information on such threads with care.

My father, or perhaps more pertinently, my mother, is getting some support from social services now. One of the things they’ve done that has really helped is given her a grant for a cleaner to come to the home and help around the house, which is making a big difference (and my brother and I are topping up the hours).

The Elder Care option for one month costs £4,500, which is for 24/7 care.

Sorry Rusty. training for home care staff is inadequate. That is simply true.

What the care companies say they provide and the reality is very different, and what they even clam they do in the way of training is grossly inadequte

The Elder Care option for one month costs £4,500, which is for 24/7 care.

£6.25 an hour. Thats not even minimum wage and the company will be taking a profit off that so the workers will be paid less. Obviously they are only paying sleepover rates not working time overnight.

Obviously they are only paying sleepover rates

So your maths is wrong, and how they manage to pay min wage for the rest of the time. I’m not defending shonky care, but at least try be accurate TJ. There’s really bad home care out there, and that speaks for itself, you don’t need to make it look worse than it already is TBH

Sorry Rusty. some company’s training for home care staff is inadequate. That is simply true

There’s massive variability in the care system. which is part of the issue.

My maths is wrong? 24 hrs a day for 30 days is 720 hours. 4500 / 720 is 6,25 an hour. Now if the company is only charging 6.25 an hour how much per hour are they paying staff? the only way they could do this is by paying not much above minimum wage for daytime and well under for nighttime

As for training. No home care company provides what I would consider adequate training. No carer should be going into someones home unaccompanied without at least svq ( NVQ in england?) level 2 IMO and even that is really badly under-trained for what is required.

The way the system is set up it is impossible to have adequately trained staff.

nah, it’s over night rates, so it’ll be £30-ish for 10 hours. means you can pay up to 8.50 for the rest. It’s how they manage to pay min wages. Not saying it’s right, but that’s how it’s done.

what I would consider adequate training

ah well. you’re not the end level-boss of home care though are you?

thats what I said nickc – but a recent court case judged that overnight rates should be paid at minimum wage but this is not yet binding as the care providers are appealing

You forgot the care provider will be taking a profit and also have to pay holiday pay emplyers NI contributions etc out of that.

Sure, but the point is your maths isn’t right, it’s not how the rates are calculated. They’re calculated pretty shoddily, but not like how you’ve done it. It doesn’t really matter though. It’s still ends up being crappy low wages, for a pretty full on job.

zero hours contracts mean no holiday pay… (just sayin, don’t shout at the messenger… 😆 )

If its the same outfit, then the CQC inspection report is encouraging. It’s akin to an MOT on your car in that they can only assess what they saw on the day. It looks like they have moved office since (requiring registration at the new premises), but that’s not a cause for concern on its own.

From the OP, it appears that a formal assessment of Father’s needs is warranted, if this has not already taken place. This should take into consideration the current and likely future domestic circumstances, etc as you probably are aware. This takes time so might not coincide with the knee operation. You mentioned a grant provision for domestic support – can you speak to the people who you dealt with then?

Comparisons with the Scottish system are skewed, because over 65s are entitled to free personal care here. There’s a ‘national contract’ that specifies residential care rates for Local Authority funded places, which equates to about 28 hours of home care (hence TJ’s comments about a pressure towards residential care above this level of provision).

More generally, I am not convinced the picture is quite as bleak as some view it (I think a third of delays (136 people at Aug 17) might be related to care arrangements, not a third of beds occupied (NHS Lothian has about 3500 beds over all specialities). While I have no doubt improvements can be made, there are a lot of people in many agencies working very hard and who are good at their jobs.

Long story short, have a chat with the social work department if you haven’t already.

Nickc – we are agreeing on this – just looking at it differntly

I should have said an average of 6.25 an hour total income to the company perhaps so the company must be paying only sleepover rates at night and not much above minimum wage for daytimne

zero hours contracts do not mean no holiday pay. Holiday pay is given as a % of your average wage

Government bows to care provider pressure over sleep-in payments

twice with chips – at one point a couple of years ago over 350 people where in acute beds at WGH and RIE awaiting care packages ( including those awaiting NH placements) or so the figures we were provided said. thats about 1/3 of all acute beds. Maybe I only had partial information. 3500 NHS beds in the lothians? Really?

Nickc – we are agreeing on this

sure, I’m just being pedantic really. 😆

I am about to date someone who works for Helping Hands, she reckons the money is good. Also reckons the office staff are prety hopeless, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. Only been with them since April though, but 12 years in care.

As you are 24/7 I guess that you rack up your wages pretty quick as you are not supporting yourself.