Are you sure you need a care home?

EIGHT WAYS TO HELP YOU MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION.


Moving into residential care is a big decision and sometimes it is clear that it is the best decision you can make, if this is the case visit preparing for residential care and discover how to make it a positive move.

Looking after somebody who is unable to care for themselves is exhausting, emotionally draining and isolating. Here are eight suggestions that might make life a little easier and help you, or the relative you are caring for to stay at home.

1. Get an assessment from Social Services.

Whether you qualify for financial help from Social Services or not, this assessment is free. The assessment will help you to recognise what your needs are and who might be able to help you.

The carer can also have their own needs assessed and may be eligible for help.

2. Home Improvement Agencies.

Concern about maintaining your house can be a great worry – poorly maintained homes can also create hazards; cold is a killer for the elderly.

Foundations is a government appointed national body of ‘home improvement agencies’. They will offer advice on keeping your home warm and safe and the types of equipment available to help you stay in your own home. They will also advise you on any grants that you may be able to apply for.

STEP 3. Help at Home.

Home help is called ‘Domiciliary Care’ and if you are relying on this to get out of bed, bathing, dressing or your meals you need to make sure that the agency is reliable and that you like your carers. This can be tricky if you are funded by Social Services.

Alternatives are Direct Payments, where money is paid directly into your bank account and you employ your own help.

Private or voluntary agencies also provide domiciliary care. All agencies need to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), have a look on their website for a list – my advice would be to start with the agencies that have the highest rating – 3 stars.

STEP 4. Food.

Keeping well depends upon eating well. Everybody has heard of Meals on Wheels, well they still exist so get in touch. Alternatively there are many companies that are local to you that deliver high quality food, find one that offers the food that you like with reliable drivers.

STEP 5. Pets.

Having a pet can be enormously rewarding, especially if you life alone. However, it can also be very worrying – who will look after him if I am ill, how will I get food in? The ‘Cinnamon Trust’ is a national charity that holds hands with owners to provide care for their pets – if your pet needs it, they will do it.

STEP 6. Disability Register.

The disability register is a not for profit organisation and provides details of new and second hand equipment that may make life a little easier. Items are bought and sold on a direct one-to-one basis, no middle men or commission involved.

STEP 7. Day centres.

Day care centres provide the opportunity to spend time with other people, as well as offering a range of activities – they also give the carer a break and some time to themselves. Run by the local authorities and local voluntary groups a national register doesn’t exist, but your local Age Concern will have a list of day centres.

STEP 8. Loneliness.

Being lonely can be a big problem when you are trying to remain independent in your own home. ‘Contact the Elderly’ is a volunteer organisation that organises regular Sunday afternoon tea parties for people over 75, who live alone with little or no social support.

If you decide that a care home is the right option for you, make sure you know what to ask when you visit your short list of homes, Questions to ask a care home gives you a list of questions that you can print off and take with you.

Where are the Dignity Champions?

I became a Dignity Champion about a year ago and recently attended a meeting at the Department of Health about their Dignity in Care Campaign. Among the 15 or so who attended there was only one other person, other than myself, who did not actually work in a care environment.

I must say they were all articulate and passionate about trying to make their care environment more dignified - but I couldn't help thinking, where are the members of the public?

Surely it is the public who wants to safeguard the dignity of their relatives when they are in a residential or nursing home? It is also the public who often witnesses undignified or unacceptable behaviour by health care workers.

Being treated with dignity is in my view a basic human right and never more so than when the individual concerned is vulnerable. So why aren't the public getting involved in the Dignity Campaign?

I think the answer to that is quite simple - they don't know about it!

So I am on a mission to inform members of the public that they can become dignity champions and help to influence how their relatives are treated within care homes and any other care environment. I have even got my mum and dad involved as they are the reason I feel so passionately about this - check out http://www.best-care-home.co.uk/dignity.php if you would like to meet mum and dad and see how I am trying to encourage people to become Dignity Champions. Are you one?

Personal recommendations about care homes are rarer than hen's teeth and yet it seems to be that most people rely on the views of others when they choose a care home. I have even seen statistics that suggest one third of people only see one care home when making their choice - presumably through lack of information about the others.

If you don't have access to unbiased information it is easy to see how the first one you see could become the ultimate destination.

My ethos as I explained in my first blog, is that if you have a problem with an area of care try and find a solution. So I have set up www.best-care-home.co.uk. Initially I simply wanted to provide an online register of the best care homes, with a lot more information that simply a name, address and telephone number - so I encouraged lots of photos, links to CQC reports, videos (more of that later). Anything that will really give a prospective resident and their family a realistic and valuable insight into the home, before they visit it; and I made this free to the care home so that there were no barriers to providing information.

I also encouraged personal recommendations of the homes; and if I believed everything I read in the newspapers, I wasn't expecting to receive very many - how wrong could I be. I have received hundreds in a few months and they are moving and genuine and would really encourage me to visit that home.

So congratulations to the homes and the staff that have received these pesonal recommendations and thank you to the members of the public, residents, health visitors and everybody else that wanted to share their positive experiences with others.

A study led by the University of London's school of pharmacy has shown that 70% of care homes, incorrectly administer drugs. In some cases the prescribed drugs were not given at all. The consequences of these mistakes could obviously be severe. Newspaper articles that once again lay the blame (within their headlines at least) at the feet of the care home, complain of the situation but does not suggest a remedy.

Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat health spokesman said

' This shocking number of mistakes cannot be tolerated...The NHS should be made to declare when staff mistakes injure or kill patients so that improvements to standards can be made'.

A case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted in my view. A Department of Health spokesman said;

'We will work with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and others to take forward the important issues raised by this study'

Frankly that does not reassure me. The residents within care homes are our relatives and as such we have a responsibility to improve conditions and procedures - simply pushing this responsibility onto the CQC is not going to get the situation improved.

What can we do about medication that is incorrectly given, or forgotten entirely?

At the Care Show at Olympia last week I saw a company that provided weekly medication - for use within care homes or private homes, in what I can only describe as a large blister pack. It can dispense pills and liquids, is labelled with the drug and when it should be taken. In addition and perhaps most importantly, it has the name of the resident and their photo on it.

I will have a word with the company and see if they would like to tell you more about it.

I was reading The Times last week and they were talking about private schools and the power of parents within the parent teachers association. It occured to me, that as far as I know we don't have an equivalent 'voice' within care homes.

I emailed the Residents and Relatives Association and asked them their view. The bottom line is that according to them, there is no requirement within the existing Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations that stipulates or even suggests the existance of a 'relative carers association'. They went on to say that they thought the poorer care homes would avoid this avenue at all costs - I am sure they would.

So, if it works for schools, why wouldn't it work for care homes? I think one of the reasons schools get more support from parents is that they meet in the playground and become friends etc. and obviously this doesn't happen in a care home. But if the care home set up an online association for the relatives or residents to participate in, what a voice. Sharing problems, concerns and praise could benefit everybody involved - the residents, relatives and the staff.

If the care home won't or can't establish an online association what is to stop the residents creating their own? I don't see this as a vehicle for being negative about a care home, but as a drive towards improving what is wrong, praising what is going right and sharing information.

I am going to suggest this to some care homes and some relatives to see what the response is - I will let you know.

My first blog.

Welcome to my first blog.

Care and share is about the people we care for; how we care for them and the information we can share to help each other. By sharing information we can join together in improving care for the elderly and vulnerable people in our society.

The care industry is massive and in the main receives pretty awful publicity - but I don't think we can only blame the care homes for this level of care. We should assume some responsibility for the poor care received in some residential environments because we don't do anything about it - and before you go ballistic; when you have read in the newspaper about baby P, or abuse in a nursing home, what have you actually done about it?

You have probably done the same as me, nothing. Until now. I invite comments from anybody that has an opinion on care homes in any form, let me know what you think - but if you have a complaint, suggest a remedy. Between us we might be able to come up with some answers and let's face it we won't know until we try and you never know where this blog might lead us.