Do I Complain and How do I do it

[Margarita]

how can I in my right mind entrust my mum to services that just dont care enough. I would not entrust my child to a childminder who did not care enough

I really understand where you’re coming from when you say about if it happens to a child, but then god forbid if it did happen to a child , that we left are child with a child minder and she burse are child, would we leave that child in her hands again ? never leave her with another child minder again , no we would report her to the police, social service and find another child minder, that is regulated by social services

The guilt your feeling is natural, you can beat yourself up about it, but that does not help you in your caring role , its not easy for me to say that , because my mother told me once that she saw a carer keep kicking a lady in the leg to get her up to walk, the man did not do it to my mother because at that time my mother was to alert and would walk around , now how can I prove this and that he was not kicking her in the leg in a joking way ,and ahe should not be doing that anyway . also was my mother telling me is true ? I think so , so what I did I told social services and I told them I did not want my mother going they any more .

I do hope you can find another way around it , in getting respite , if this has really put you of sending your mother to respite .

They is a site that you can check how good a care home is before sending someone there I try find the link xx

http://www.csci.org.uk/about_csci/press_releases/families_take_the_strain_as_co.aspx

http://www.csci.org.uk/complain/share_concerns_and_complaints.aspx

 

[kindheart]

thanks again for all your support it really easies my mind to think you all care

thank you all

I will contact the home and discuss this insitend with the manager and I also going to have a someone with me hopefully ( a professional person to help)

I have no faith what so ever in the social service I am already having difficulties with the cpn who cannot find time to visit regularly.

basically I dont need the hassel.

I have fought many battles for my mum my dad and my children and i will never give up.

but deep down I know that the difficulties I face caring for mum are become too much for me to cope with which is why I need respite. When the time comes i need to be sure the home she is in is safe and fuzzy.

Which at the moment I am very unsure of, the mental health team I speak to when they find the time is a uttly useless, or should i say about as much use as a chocolate fire guard.

I cannot believe that my mum and my dad worked every day since they came to this country to be treat so badly in their later years, the only time they have ever called on the sate to repay some of the tax and NI they have paid in the past 50 odd years.

Yes i am very resentful, and if i did not have a partner, children and grandchildren all of whom make me very happy I would gladly care for mum for the rest of her life.

 

[Wordsmith]

...how can I in my right mind entrust my mum to services that just dont care enough.

The truth is, you can't. And that's so hard to cope with.

At the end of the day you have to mingle hope with trust that the person you love will get the care she deserves. The services have a job to do and that job is caring, but we can't fully relate to caring without love.

Professionals in many fields use "professional detachment" to help them avoid the potential for emotional burnout. It sounds like a contradiction.

Only loving relatives can care fully, in my opinion, but most of us lack the professionalism and necessary skills. So at some stage we have to hand over our loved ones to carers and nursing homes.

After that we do all we can to monitor the care being provided. We visit homes regularly and attentively ensure our loved ones are being cared for properly.

It can be a bit of a strain but we have to run with it as best we can, a day at a time.

 

[Skye]

Only loving relatives can care fully, in my opinion, but most of us lack the professionalism and necessary skills. So at some stage we have to hand over our loved ones to carers and nursing homes.

Gosh, Wordsmith, you've hit the nail right on the head there. We struggle to admit to ourselves that the best we have to offer isn't good enough, and that's why most of us find it so difficult to hand our loved ones over to the professionals. But what they offer is (in many cases) not good enough either. So we worry, get depressed, and feel that we have failed.

Thanks for the thought. It's profound, and I'll keep it in mind.

 

[Margarita]

I am already having difficulties with the cpn who cannot find time to visit regularly.

I did not even get the option of a CPN in my area they just don’t do CPN for people with dementia / AZ , I got a visit for 3 weeks with what they call in my area a dementia nurse that was 2 half years ago , was told that it , they visit for 3 weeks , dementia nurse did an assessment on my mother care need , then pass it all on to the SW who turn up done a carer assessment on me and that it no more dementia nurse no CPN .

 

[Grannie G]

Dear Kindheart,

Goodness, have you chosen the right user name.

Your feelings for your mother, and about her care [or lack of it] are both heartwarming on the one hand and heartbreaking on the other hand. The protection you want to give her at this stage in her life, is the protection she gave you as a young child.

I do understand your frustration, and your anger and only wish there was an answer. If your best is not good enough, what do you do. If you are taking on all the responsibilities and wearing yourself into a shadow, what happens when you can do it no longer.

There are good homes, you can read about them in posts from seversl members of TP. Just keep searching and try not to lose hope.

I do wish you well. Love Sylvia x

 

[cynron]

silly island

Wordsmith.
I found the article on your web site very interesting and true to life as i have found in N Homes my husband has been in.I recommend others to take a look at this link.

Cynron x x

 

[kindheart]

update

Dear all

Once again I would like to thank you all for your responses regarding this issue, which I have been greatly concerned about.

I thought I would let you know whats happened.

I contacted the care manager and they insitgated an investigation, the result of which has come back as "inconcluesive".

I am more annoyed about the result of the "investigation" than the actual incident.

I have not seen the actual report and I have an appointment with the social services to discuss this futher before I decided whether to take this matter futher. However the social worker who rang me to tell me of this out come, gave me some insight to the report and coments where made such as they had easlier manvoured mum into the bath using a hoist (something that she has never in her life experienced before) and that she splashed in the bath.

Whilst I do not wish to make more of this than it is, but my gut reaction to this is what a load of old codswollop.

I know my mum, I know how she reacts in given a situation. Again I re-iterate that I do not believe the buising to have been intentional however I did expect the investigation to be honest and not what it seems to to me as a cover up for an accidental event that should have been clearly reported to me, so I could have expected the behavoural difficuilties I have expereince since she came home from respite.

Further, this has shaken my trust in the whole system of managing homes and how will I ever be confident that if and when I need respite in the future, my mum will be safe.

 

[noelphobic]

I am more annoyed about the result of the "investigation" than the actual incident.

I can really identify with that! I complained to the CSCI last year about an incident in an EMI home my mum had been in - I won't bore you with all the details, most of which will be in my old posts on TP! The home in question didn't answer all the points I raised and didn't seem to take it seriously at all. When I got the first report back from the CSCI I contacted them again by email and told them I wasn't happy with their conclusions. It was then passed to the manager of the first person in CSCI who had dealt with the case to be reinvestigated. This time around I had a partial 'victory' in that the home admitted some shortcomings and was told to review certain procedures.

I don't regret making the complaint and take some comfort from knowing that the complaint will be 'on the record' and there is a chance that the same mistakes won't happen again. However, it was an extremely stressful process to go through.

You need to remember that there are good care/nursing homes out there, even though you may doubt this following your experience.

Take care
Brenda

 

[Brucie]

Hi kindheart

I suspect that 'inconclusive' means that they simply had nothing they could definitely hang the cause on. You might ask the home manager exactly what was the process they followed in their investigation.

I'd ask for a copy of whatever report they produced - they might want to take out any identification of individual staff, but at least it should show what they did, and you can judge the quality of their investigation on that.

Beyond that, there's not a lot that I can think of to say to help....