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Choosing a Care company

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kiloran
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Choosing a Care company

#417666

Postby kiloran » June 6th, 2021, 12:45 pm

Mum (97 years young and living alone) had a lot of pain in her leg a few months ago and went into hospital. She came out pain free but now cannot get out of a chair or stand, so the council Adult Care organisation contracted a private company to provide two carers four times a day to move her between bed, chair and commode, provide personal care, and meals. This free service is for 6 weeks and is now coming to an end, so we need to find a care company to provide the service. The two carers who normally help her are truly wonderful and caring, and we thought of continuing with them. However we do have some reservations about the variability of times they see mum (not good if one visit is early, and the next is very late when mum is desperate for the loo), and the carers told me that they have to provide their own transport (they do 150 miles a day!) and are not paid mileage, which makes me question whether their management are looking after the carers.
Their are lots of care providers available in the area, and the council also provide the service (and they are cheaper).

So how do we decide which service provider to go for? What are the things we need to question? There are often CQC reports available, but beyond that, we might as well stick a pin in a list to decide.

Any thoughts or experiences?

--kiloran

pje16
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Re: Choosing a Care company

#417694

Postby pje16 » June 6th, 2021, 2:55 pm

When my Mum (RIP) needed care a few years ago we used Bluebird
https://www.bluebirdcare.co.uk
The carers she had were absolutely excellent
For the last 2 years of her life mum was bedridden and needed feeding changing and lifting in out of bed on a hoist
The staff (all female) who came in to care for her were lovely and treated mum as if she was one of their own
They all came friends with my dad and 4 of them even came to her funeral
The blue bird managment team leaves something to be desired, they seem to think staff hve a magic broom and can leave one plce at 6pm and be somehere 3 or 4 miles away by public transport at 6pm as well
I think, as with a lot of services, it comes down to the individuals themselves, not the company

staffordian
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Re: Choosing a Care company

#417704

Postby staffordian » June 6th, 2021, 3:34 pm

I can only offer a comment based on seeing three or four relatives receiving care at home from different care providers.

In every case the punctuality has left something to be desired.

It seems to me that this is inevitable given the nature of the work and the amount of travel between clients.

Possibly better to focus on the quality of the care when making a decision and try to put some mitigation into effect to lessen the consequences of late visits.

Mike88
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Re: Choosing a Care company

#417713

Postby Mike88 » June 6th, 2021, 4:07 pm

It's a lottery I'm afraid. The only thing that really matters is the carers and not the care company. All carers are rewarded with low pay and none to my knowledge are paid a mileage allowance. One issue I had with carers is that their timekeeping was poor due to overwork and rarely did the same person or persons turn up making it difficult for my mother to have any kind of bond with them which is essential given the personal nature of the care given.

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Re: Choosing a Care company

#418290

Postby monabri » June 9th, 2021, 7:53 am

Get in touch with your council. ( which you know about from the cost point of view).
Also, apply for attendance allowance.

kiloran
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Re: Choosing a Care company

#418295

Postby kiloran » June 9th, 2021, 8:38 am

monabri wrote:Get in touch with your council. ( which you know about from the cost point of view).
Also, apply for attendance allowance.

Yes, she already has the higher-rate AA. I've been doing more research and the best single site I've found so far is https://www.homecare.co.uk/
I've formulated a bunch of questions (many of them focussing on the way they treat their carers) and I'll be phoning a number of shortlisted companies today

--kiloran


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