Finding, Funding and Paying for Personal Care

[Grable]

Mum had an assessment at her house a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure who the assessor was, but seemed to be somebody from Social Services (arranged by my brother). The agreement was that Mum really needs somebody to go in once a day at this point to check that she's taking her pills and to sort out any day-to-day problems she may have. The likelihood is that she will need more care as her condition progresses, of course.

As she has saved all her life, she has enough money to be self-funding, so the assessor gave us a list of people in the area (Derby) who act as carers and left us to it.

My question is - what do we do next? Do you select a few of these people, contact them to see if they are available and interview them? Or is the interview not something you do? And how do you go about paying them? I assume there's NI contributions to be considered - and pension entitlement these days? Or are they considered to be self-employed?

What I really need is a step-by-step breakdown of what to do now, and I have to say that I'm surprised we weren't given one at the assessment session. I know that lots of people on this forum have been through the situation, so would be grateful for any practical tips.

Thanks, in advance!

 

[bemused1]

I'm afraid you're on your own largely if you are self funding.

Firstly is this list a list of individual carers or of agencies? If the former can't help on that one.
If they are agencies they will look after all the financial bits. If the list is agencies, look on the CQC website which will give you the latest reports on the agencies. Pick any that sound suitable and phone them. Talk over your mums requirements first. Then they will come out to do an assessment of your mum. You can insist they just do an assessment at this stage. If you find something suitable they can then do a risk assessment, draw up an agreed care plan and that's it. Be aware that the care plan covers everything you want done.

If its a list of individual carers, which I doubt, someone else will have to advise you, its more complex.
I hope you find good care for your mum, it takes some looking for

 

[fizzie]

The kind of questions that are worth asking to try to get the best care possible from the off are

Will the carer be a regular person (some agencies send someone different each day - very confusing for people with dementia)

How often do you review her care plan with us? You would expect them to look at it every 6 months and more often if the situation changes

How do you carers respond to a fall or an emergency? You would expect that they would notify you urgently and then follow an agreed plan - in a severe emergency you would expect them to tell you that they would phone emergency services and then you and stay until one of you came

How do they notify if someone is going to be late? I would probably expect them to phone me so that I could let my mum know or decide that it wasn't necessary but you may want them to let her know directly.

How will you manage if she refuses her medication? You need to know what they would propose in this situation - would they do more than prompt and would they phone you to let you know (you need to decide together how you want this managed)

These things might seem obvious but sadly some agency carers have no idea how to manage situations.

Good luck

Also worth checking the Care Quality Commission website to see how they have found each agency although many have not yet been checked