I wanted to gain other peoples' opinions regarding a situation that has arisen at my father's nursing care home, which is a specialist one for dementia.
My father is 81 and he is in the mid to early late stage of Alzheimers. He can walk around but he is doubly incontinent and doesn't know who we are when we visit. When he talks it often doesn't make much sense but when you ask him a question he does appear to understand but can't pick up the conversational thread and continue with it.
At the end of April this year we visited my Dad at the home and took in some money to top up his patient expenses account and I had a copy of the home's Spring/Summer Event Planner 2015 which had been posted to me, on which I ticked the trips I wanted my Dad to go on - mainly free trips out locally and a paid trip to Weston Supermare on 15th July. I put a cross alongside the 3 trips I didn't want him to attend, which included a paid trip to Blackpool in August.
I asked the staff member who took the expenses top-up money for a copy of the updated expenses record sheet and a copy of the event planner with my selections on it. This staff member is a 'Wellbeing team Advisor'. This team oversees people going on trips and does activities in the home too.
My brother visited my Dad on Sunday 5th and Monday 6th July when he was over here from Germany where he lives. He handed over £100 to top up my Dad's expenses account, so that there would be enough to fund the £45 cost of the Weston Supermare trip. He gave the money to another member for the Wellbeing/Activities team and she gave him a written receipt.
On Wed 29th July I received a phone call from my Dad's care home from a member of admin staff wanting my address so they could send a letter out. This alone surprised and annoyed me as the home regularly sends out letters to me so they definitely have my address already. I gave the person the address and then asked how my Dad got on with his trip to Weston Supermare. She said she'd need to transfer me to the nurse's office to find out this information. The nurse manager who I then spoke to said my Dad hadn't gone on the Weston trip but would be going on the Blackpool trip instead! I said why didn't he go and she said she wasn't sure and I said I'd specifically marked on the event planer that I didn't want him to go on the Blackpool trip. She said they'd recently had a new Activities/Wellbeing team Leader, as if by way of explanation and I said but surely the Event Planner with my selections on it would just go on my Dad's file which would be handed over. As usual she wasn't interested in even looking in my Dad's care file to see if he had been ill on that day - this is the usual way things go - they either have zero initiative or inclination to do anything outside the basic remit.
I then tried to get hold of the care home manager - something I've never succeeded in doing so so as they're never available or you get diverted onto someone else. The admin lady I spoke to said she would put me through to the care homes owner but this never happened as, as usual, she diverted me to someone else.
I was called by the Team Leader of the Wellbeing/Activities team at the other care home run by the same owner/company. She used to work at my Dad's home but now seems to go back and forth between the two as needed. She said she had been asked by the owner to investigate what had happened. I asked for a scanned & emailed copy of my Dad's Expenses record sheet - the 'Patient Savings Account Record', as I wanted to see whether any money had been taken for the Weston trip my Dad never went on.
I didn't receive this copy of the expenses record until the Friday 7th July and this was only after pressing the point and it wasn't even a scanned copy, but 2 photos taken of the 2 latest sheets with her mobile phone. She said on Friday that she could find no reference on the sheet to a payment in of £45 for the trip. I said my brother wouldn't have paid in just £45 - he would have probably paid in a larger amount.
She said the last payment in was £100 on 18th July - I said this was clearly the money handed over by my brother on 6th July. That payment is initialled with the Wellbeing team Leader's initials only, with no initialling by the person who actually received the money from my brother.
I was by now getting extremely frustrated by the lack of initiative/brainpower/concern from any of the staff and the fact that neither the owner, care home manager or wellbeing/activities team leader had bothered to phone me. I finally received an email from the home manager on the Friday 31st July, offering two possible dates to meet this week, after I'd told the person doing the investigation that they should suggest some dates when she said they'd offered to meet with me. I arranged to attend a meeting with the care manager and wellbeing team leader
I tried to contact the 2 wellbeing team staff who a) took the event planner selections list off me and b) took the £100 off my brother the one who took the money is on A/L until 17th August and the event list one phoned in sick yesterday
I have Asperger's Syndrome and will be the first to admit that I am a very systematic and exacting person and I have great difficulty accepting how people are vs how i would like them to be. I have done various admin jobs in the past myself though, including managing petty cash and the way things have been handled by the home really concerns me in terms of how slack their money handling and recording system is, which leaves them wide open to accusations of fraud and how ineffective their system is for recording which trips residents want to go on.
I wanted feedback re what other people think of the situation and any suggestions/advice.
My father is 81 and he is in the mid to early late stage of Alzheimers. He can walk around but he is doubly incontinent and doesn't know who we are when we visit. When he talks it often doesn't make much sense but when you ask him a question he does appear to understand but can't pick up the conversational thread and continue with it.
At the end of April this year we visited my Dad at the home and took in some money to top up his patient expenses account and I had a copy of the home's Spring/Summer Event Planner 2015 which had been posted to me, on which I ticked the trips I wanted my Dad to go on - mainly free trips out locally and a paid trip to Weston Supermare on 15th July. I put a cross alongside the 3 trips I didn't want him to attend, which included a paid trip to Blackpool in August.
I asked the staff member who took the expenses top-up money for a copy of the updated expenses record sheet and a copy of the event planner with my selections on it. This staff member is a 'Wellbeing team Advisor'. This team oversees people going on trips and does activities in the home too.
My brother visited my Dad on Sunday 5th and Monday 6th July when he was over here from Germany where he lives. He handed over £100 to top up my Dad's expenses account, so that there would be enough to fund the £45 cost of the Weston Supermare trip. He gave the money to another member for the Wellbeing/Activities team and she gave him a written receipt.
On Wed 29th July I received a phone call from my Dad's care home from a member of admin staff wanting my address so they could send a letter out. This alone surprised and annoyed me as the home regularly sends out letters to me so they definitely have my address already. I gave the person the address and then asked how my Dad got on with his trip to Weston Supermare. She said she'd need to transfer me to the nurse's office to find out this information. The nurse manager who I then spoke to said my Dad hadn't gone on the Weston trip but would be going on the Blackpool trip instead! I said why didn't he go and she said she wasn't sure and I said I'd specifically marked on the event planer that I didn't want him to go on the Blackpool trip. She said they'd recently had a new Activities/Wellbeing team Leader, as if by way of explanation and I said but surely the Event Planner with my selections on it would just go on my Dad's file which would be handed over. As usual she wasn't interested in even looking in my Dad's care file to see if he had been ill on that day - this is the usual way things go - they either have zero initiative or inclination to do anything outside the basic remit.
I then tried to get hold of the care home manager - something I've never succeeded in doing so so as they're never available or you get diverted onto someone else. The admin lady I spoke to said she would put me through to the care homes owner but this never happened as, as usual, she diverted me to someone else.
I was called by the Team Leader of the Wellbeing/Activities team at the other care home run by the same owner/company. She used to work at my Dad's home but now seems to go back and forth between the two as needed. She said she had been asked by the owner to investigate what had happened. I asked for a scanned & emailed copy of my Dad's Expenses record sheet - the 'Patient Savings Account Record', as I wanted to see whether any money had been taken for the Weston trip my Dad never went on.
I didn't receive this copy of the expenses record until the Friday 7th July and this was only after pressing the point and it wasn't even a scanned copy, but 2 photos taken of the 2 latest sheets with her mobile phone. She said on Friday that she could find no reference on the sheet to a payment in of £45 for the trip. I said my brother wouldn't have paid in just £45 - he would have probably paid in a larger amount.
She said the last payment in was £100 on 18th July - I said this was clearly the money handed over by my brother on 6th July. That payment is initialled with the Wellbeing team Leader's initials only, with no initialling by the person who actually received the money from my brother.
I was by now getting extremely frustrated by the lack of initiative/brainpower/concern from any of the staff and the fact that neither the owner, care home manager or wellbeing/activities team leader had bothered to phone me. I finally received an email from the home manager on the Friday 31st July, offering two possible dates to meet this week, after I'd told the person doing the investigation that they should suggest some dates when she said they'd offered to meet with me. I arranged to attend a meeting with the care manager and wellbeing team leader
I tried to contact the 2 wellbeing team staff who a) took the event planner selections list off me and b) took the £100 off my brother the one who took the money is on A/L until 17th August and the event list one phoned in sick yesterday
I have Asperger's Syndrome and will be the first to admit that I am a very systematic and exacting person and I have great difficulty accepting how people are vs how i would like them to be. I have done various admin jobs in the past myself though, including managing petty cash and the way things have been handled by the home really concerns me in terms of how slack their money handling and recording system is, which leaves them wide open to accusations of fraud and how ineffective their system is for recording which trips residents want to go on.
I wanted feedback re what other people think of the situation and any suggestions/advice.