Scabies at the Care Home

glyn

Registered User
Nov 23, 2006
30
0
Scabies
My mum has been in a care home for 6 months and has had Scabies twice! She is currently being treated for scabies at the moment, along with the other residents of the home and also visitors. The spots are causing her a lot of distress and she is scratching all the time, despite the application of Calamine every day. I have raised my concerns with the manager and the PCT, but I am appalled that this could happen a second time. I would like to take my complaint further....but where?? Would the Public Health Dept pay attention and what could they (or any other official body) do, to ensure this does not occur again. Somebody should be monitoring this and ensuring it doesn’t happen again. Any thoughts please.
 
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noelphobic

Registered User
Feb 24, 2006
3,452
0
Liverpool
Have you tried contacting CSCI? They are the regulatory body for care homes

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

I hope this is of some help.

Since this post was posted, the name of the regulator has changed to the Care Quality Commission The link provided takes you to the CQC website. The most useful page is reached on the following link http://www.cqc.org.uk/public/sharing-your-experience Go to the right of the page and open the relevant attachment about complaints. NB, CQC does not investigate individual complaints but will still be interested in your concerns.
 
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Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
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near London
She is currently being treated for scabies at the moment, along with the other residents of the home and also visitors
presumably the staff were first to be treated?

And all clothing and bedlinen washed at high temperature?

Treatment for scabies is simple, if embarrassing because of need for disclosure.

Not only do visitors, but also anyone visitors have been in close contact with, outside the home. All need to be treated.

Been there, done that, and Jan's home is a very good one.:(

Finding the source of an appearance of scabies can be very difficult - it may have been brought in by a visitor, member of staff. Occasional visitors - or a once only visitor, or a respite person....

Scabies is not like fungus on the wall, it is not caused by damp.

The key thing is for the home to take it seriously and do a thorough job of ridding the place of it. If they don't then that is a cause for complaint.
 

glyn

Registered User
Nov 23, 2006
30
0
thanks for the advice.
I think the Home are taking it serious now, but it has taken them some time to do something about it. I will contacat the CSCI so that at least they can keep a record of this and any future outbreaks.
 

May

Registered User
Oct 15, 2005
627
0
Yorkshire
Got the T shirt...

Mum's home had a scabies outbreak, her home is a good one. The staff worked flat out (they were exhausted..) getting all the residents on the seperate units treated on the same day, boil washing all bedding, clothing etc. Staff were treated also on the same day. Vistors were advised that they had to use the appropriate treatment from their doctor/pharmacy. Unfortunately the manager is not able to enforce this with visitors, only staff and residents and some people were stupid enough to object!:eek::(. This type of attitude is probably why your Mum's home had another outbreak...
Have to say I itched for ages afterwards at the mention of scabies (no didn't catch it;))and it's not easy putting the lotion on the bits of yourself that you can't reach!:D Do hope by now that your Mum has stopped itching and is less distressed. Take care.
 

Linda Mc

Registered User
Jul 3, 2005
1,879
0
Nr Mold
23 years ago when my daughter was about to be married there was an outbreak in the home she worked in and she picked it up...we can laugh now but she had to wear lace gloves on the day as her fingers were so bad...so your post brought back memories.;)

Two years ago I thought I had it too and had the treatment painted from head to toe but turned out to be an allergy to planting marigolds!:rolleyes:

Do hope the home sorts it out soon.

Linda x
 

glyn

Registered User
Nov 23, 2006
30
0
sorting it

The care home have now put into effect the full treatment for the outbreak. Mam has stopped her itching although she still has spots. She is not as distressed and is becoming much calmer and getting back into a routine of sleeping and eating again. Thank goodness! She was so good prior this outbreak, settled into a lovely routine, and laughing and smiling. Hopefully she will get back to 'normal' again very soon.

Fingers crossed and looking on the bright side.
 

Laylabud

Registered User
Sep 7, 2007
111
0
Kent
Scabies

Hi to you all.

Searching through this forum it looks like i am going over old ground with Scabies, but i find myself in a situation that i am not happy with at all.
My Mum is also in a care home and had a rash appear 3 weeks before Christmas 2011, i have to say she was not the 1st person to have a rash either, i was told by the GP that visits the home weekly that there were a further 6 to 7 residents also had a rash but was told that all of the infected people concerned did not have thesame rash. to begin with i was told it was a viral rash that would take weeks to go, the 1st week of January came and Mum got worse, to cut a very long story short i confronted the doctor and was told by them that they didn't think it was scabies but she would treat for it, before this treatment the doctor had reffered Mum to a dermotologist but goodness know how long that would take to get the appointment through so i took matters into my own hands and took Mum private and it was confirmed that she did have scabies, i really did not want to have to out my mum through being taken out of the home and bundled in a taxi as she cannot walk or talk, she was sick on the way to and from the hospital but felt i had no choice as all my concerns to the care home and doctors alike were being ignored, on reporting back to the care home all hell broke out and all residents, staff were treated, some relatives were also advised to have the treatment themselves which they would have to fund and at £10+ a tube of cream is not cheap, i myself also caught scabies and was treated by my Doctor, that was at the beginning of Feb when she had her 2nd treatment of the cream, in all she has had 3 lots of the cream. Tonight from work i popped into see Mum on my way home as i had been concerned about her over the weekend, i thought she was coming down with a chest infection, but according to the doctor today that appears not to be the case, but i was told tonight that Mum has another rash which has started on her midrift which is exactly where it started before, the doctor has just given her Balneum cream today, but i feel that she should be given the Lyclear cream as prevention is better than cure. I cannot understand why we are going down this road again as you would have thought that given recent events that she would have been given the lyclear as a matter of precaution, as i have read that Scabies can re-occur. I am at my wits ends and now and have insisted they call the doctors tomorrow and tell them i am not happy with the treatment. i have told the staff that i am not prepared to let my Mum go through the agony and distress she went through before.
I would assume that other people on this forum have gone through all this before so any advise would be welcome
 
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lin1

Registered User
Jan 14, 2010
9,350
0
East Kent
Hi
I found this info on scabies and hope it is helpful to you
dont know how that happened original link was to a thread on TP, most odd lol, back soon with the right one
hope this works
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Scabies/Pages/Introduction.aspx
thought it would give you some more ammo with the gp

I remember catching scabies as a child, boy did it itch, so I hope the gp takes your concerns seriously tomorrow

it is so easy to catch esp when living in close proximity to others like in care homes, it only takes one person to bring in one or two of the pesky blighters and they think they are in seventh heaven
 
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milly123

Registered User
Mar 15, 2009
896
0
England
hi Glyn a few weeks ago my uncle started going to a home two days a week for restbite he started with a rash and scratching yesterday my aunt rang me to say she had taken him to the doctors he said it was scabies dr asked if he had been to this home ,my aunt was upset as she was thinking of him going perminent now she is back to square one it took a long time to find some where near her home she is 85 and he is 86 i dont know what will happen she needs some where near as she cant travel fare milly
 

MISSJM

Registered User
Mar 19, 2012
48
0
Ireland
I don't live in the UK so I'm uncertain if this is an NHS care home or a privately paid home. If it is the latter, I would certainly be threatening to remove my mother from their care considering what you pay (If it's in anywhere near the same region as Ireland - 3,500 euro p.m.)
 

Clementine

Registered User
Apr 15, 2011
140
0
Dorset and Zug/Switzerland
The Nursing Home Mum is in had an outbreak, I think Mum showed some signs but never had the itching. We had to wear gloves and aprons and they told us to get into contact with our GP and he adviced us, although we did not show any signs, to use Lyclear and then repeat the procedure a week later. I washed all our bedding, towels and clothes on a hot wash cycle.
The Nursing Home treated all the residents and it seems to be OK now.
 

Kathphlox

Registered User
Dec 16, 2009
1,088
0
Bolton
We had this problem about 18 months ago.. Dad caught it while in respite. As it can take up to 6 weeks for the rash to appear, it's hard to pin down, but he hadn't been anywhere else, so it must have been there. We got him clear of that after a few weeks and his skin healed.

Then he went into the same home for respite again, a few days after he came home it all started again.

In all it took 4 treatments of Permethrin with no improvement before I had his own doctor out (they kept sending out the non-english speakers before) and I broke down in tears, I was exhausted with washing and cleaning.

He prescribed Derbac-M.. he said to stop all the cleaning, don't bother to treat yourself, if you've not caught it by now, you won't get it.

Derbac-M worked.. it took a long time to get dad's skin right and we applied Double Base every day for weeks. I think he had caught a resistant strain of scabies, which Permethrin couldn't kill.

All this took months of constant care.. and I mean MONTHS and MONTHS.. I do wish you all the luck with this, it's a nightmare.

The problem with dementia sufferers is this.. they don't know to stop scratching, they tear their bodies to shreds until it's a bloody mess no matter how short you cut their nails :(
 

DeborahBlythe

Registered User
Dec 1, 2006
9,222
0
Just adding that the information above about CSCI is now out of date. The regulator of care homes is now called the Care Quality Commission. Although they don't investigate individual complaints, it might still be worthwhile contacting them as they will keep a record of the concern and may use it as a basis for their own reviews of a home. There is a link to their website here, and if you look at the right hand side of the page, they have listed a number of ways in which to complain about services. http://www.cqc.org.uk/public/sharing-your-experience