Degrading conditions in care homes/Covid

Very upsetting but this case is about one care home.

Firstly, I have no faith whatsoever in the CQC. I reported a care home to them, my friend reported another and they did absolutely nothing.

My Mum was in an excellent care home right through the pandemic and it was the NHS turfing elderly patients out of hospital into care homes. The Manager at Mum’s home insisted that as patients arrived, she would not admit anybody until a member of staff had been on to the ambulance and taken the patients temperature and checked them out. Not all care homes did that so covid entered the building.

It was a horrible, horrible time but completely new and a one off for everybody.

Primrose53

Firstly, I have no faith whatsoever in the CQC. I reported a care home to them, my friend reported another and they did absolutely nothing.

My Mum was in an excellent care home right through the pandemic and it was the NHS turfing elderly patients out of hospital into care homes. The Manager at Mum’s home insisted that as patients arrived, she would not admit anybody until a member of staff had been on to the ambulance and taken the patients temperature and checked them out. Not all care homes did that so covid entered the building.

It was a horrible, horrible time but completely new and a one off for everybody.

I don't have faith in the system either. This case is the tip of the iceberg. I also reported a care home in the past and had the same result as you. The manager at your mum's care home exercised common sense, sadly in short supply. When I first heard about visiting restrictions in the pandemic it struck me that in some homes it's only visitors that keep any sort of level of care to an acceptable standard.

There was a government instruction to move patients who had come to hospital from care homes back there when their treatment was finished, to free up hospital beds for admissions. Many people caught Covid in hospital, particularly in the early days, and people were discharged back who were later found to be covid positive. Staff also brought in the infection from the community. Care staff numbers are low in care homes, and when staff were sick during the pandemic it was impossible for them to fill shifts when they needed them. A serious shortage of PPE made the situation even worse. I can well believe how dire the situation was for some homes, including this one, there would have been many others in the same dire situation.

My dear sweet MIL had to into a care home in Sept 2020 due to advanced dementia The staff were all as caring as possible, phoned my husband weekly and he was “allowed” “window” visits - it was awful for her as she had no idea what was happening but she’s still there and well looked after and my husband visits her three or four times a week and she’s well fed, spotlessly clean and as healthy as she can be - not all care homes are “bad”

This is very sad to read, but not all care homes are as bad, my mum has been in hers for nearly 4yrs now, the care has been amazing, even through lockdown with, choices of window/door visits and video calls etc, they have outstanding rating now, (I worked in the childcare sector, so if there anything like ofsted 🙈 I'm not a fan ) they deserve this rating though, as mum had previously been in another home, before this, they weren't as bad as the above, but not good enough for my mum so we moved her, we're so happy with the care that were keeping her here, as the staff can meet her needs, my mum's a self funder, but she could get goverment funding due to the stage she's at bless her, but my sisters and myself don't want to move her (to get the funding she has to be in a nursing home as our care home isn't registered for nursing) and while they can still meet her needs, we're not moving her, as we Happy with the care here

Why is it that the health worker superstars, the top doctors etc get the kudos, money and all that goes with it, yet those doing the 'real caring' get just the opposite. When if ever will it change? am i pessimistic or realistic?

My mother was in two care homes after she fell and broke her shoulder. The first one she was discharged into to recuperate and it was absolutely lovely. We were able to visit every day but we had to test and wear a mask. The second one she moved into after the NHS stopped paying for her care. It was also lovely, the staff fantastic, and very caring. The physical environment in both homes was lovely, both purpose built, and the staff very good. At the second home we still had to test before every visit and wear a mask, but we were allowed to visit freely, every day if we wanted to, and mum had almost no days without a visit. This was all at the end of Covid, in 2021/2022.
Not all care homes are the same.

Incidentally whilst mum was at the second care home, there were about four outbreaks of Covid, but all were managed well and there was no substantial spread.

Has anything changed? My Mum was recently hospitalised with Aspiration Pneumonia. The NICE guideline were not followed so we wait to see if she will survive. We have put in a formal safeguarding complain but I have little faith in the system. I told the Hospital what had happened and they were quite happy to send her back to the Nursing Home when she was ready so it took my sister to leap up and down before the hospital acknowledged there was a serious safeguarding issue. Now she will stay in hospital until they can find another care setting if she recovers. Up until now, despite expressing concerns at the Nursing Home and paying a princely sum of over £6000 a month, I have had to ensure that somebody goes in every night to give her tea as she couldn't manage it by herself. Reassurances that the care staff would assist if we didn't do that were proved wrong when I turned up a couple of times about 2 and half hours after mealtimes to find her meal totally untouched. Every step of the way the Home minimised my Mum's condition as they were worried she would get CHC.

In her respite Care Home, she came back with half her tablets untouched and a raging UTI so she collapsed on the first night home. When we queried it, they had no explanation for the failure to medicate properly or detect the very obvious UTI. The safeguarding complaint process was a joke and fizzled out with nothing done. It is so worrying.

I think there are some lovely care homes and if you find them or they are in your area you are so lucky. I viewed so many for my mum and have never been so depressed. They tried but all were understaffed , all had no choice but to institute their clients. My mum had spent her life going to bed late getting up late , loving politics , enjoying the theatre , loving outings and shopping, having a dog. Non of this could be catered for , the home staff were all busy , we did not find any with loads of staff , most understaffed , lots with a fast turn over of staff. Many staff found it difficult to attend training ( when we were able to ask them ). My mum never made it out of hospital so we did not have to make the choice in the end.
I hope I can stay in my own home until the end. X

My 95 year old father is in an amazing care home. There are daily activities - keep fit most mornings, followed by a sherry, lunch with wine and a glass of wine with his supper. The staff are wonderful and give him lots of hugs (he's always been very tactile).

The two I have been in relatively recently were both ok.
Around here, the problem is getting in one. Even though the costs are higher than the national average.

Although it sounds an awful thing to say I was so glad my Mum had died before the pandemic. We didn't have much choice in a care home when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour and it was awful. I was 2-3 hours away so couldn't go daily/weekly. They had about 3-4 Managers in the time my Mum was there - about 4 years and each said they had been sent to "Make" improvements. It closed not long after my Mum had died and I'm not surprised.
Just to top it off they hounded me for a so called missed payment (from over 12 months earlier) just before Mum died - my sister had kept all receipts (she passed away just before my Mum) so I could show payments had been made. They eventually dropped it but not before threatening to take me to court. The "best " bit was I had a 5 day holiday after my sister died for a break and informed the home. I got back late at night and could see the answerphone flashing but found a card in the post so opened that first - it was a sympathy card from the home telling me Mum had died (the day after I'd gone away). I went to the answerphone and they had phoned at 5.30 AM that day to tell me but didn't think it would have been good to speak to me before sending a card.
My concern with care as it is is that I was here to help my Mum and sister but I am now on my own and God help me if I end up somewhere like that as with no family have no one to watch out for me. I hope to be able to stay in my own home if it comes to it.

I have first hand experience of the CQC (not a care home) and also have little faith in them.
We would do well to remember the government's insistence that elderly patients be returned to care homes regardless of Covid-19 and the other rules that they forced upon them. Many care homes have remained understaffed due to poor pay, the later insistence that they be vaccinated against Covid-19 and generally feeling undervalued.
There is some bad in every walk of life of course, but on the other hand does anyone remember those staff who moved into care homes in order to care for the residents, meaning that that they didn't see their own families for several months?

I think it was the right decision that carers should be vaccinated against Covid and the wrong decision to abandon that principle. The same with medics too.

It was a HUGE mistake to move care home residents back to their care home from hospital. I fully appreciate the hospital beds were needed so why weren’t they nursed in another facility ie the nightingale hospitals ( which were never really used ) and cared for there until they tested negative?

A few years ago after cancer the NHS sent me into a care home for “rehabilitation”. The worst two weeks of my life. The room was filthy, sheets on bed too small, crumpled and dirty. Used uncovered commode left in room whilst had my meal. Was not helped to shower. Called for pain killer and after a half hour was told I would have to wait an hour for the trolley came round. Had to provide my own TV.
My report was ignored.
Although it is a struggle for me I am determined to stay in my own home.
My home helps father is in a home but she has to go and shave and shower him and she finds his meal untouched. Her mothers care home has no restrictions to prevent Covid so she doesn’t visit.

Bijou

A few years ago after cancer the NHS sent me into a care home for “rehabilitation”. The worst two weeks of my life. The room was filthy, sheets on bed too small, crumpled and dirty. Used uncovered commode left in room whilst had my meal. Was not helped to shower. Called for pain killer and after a half hour was told I would have to wait an hour for the trolley came round. Had to provide my own TV.
My report was ignored.
Although it is a struggle for me I am determined to stay in my own home.
My home helps father is in a home but she has to go and shave and shower him and she finds his meal untouched. Her mothers care home has no restrictions to prevent Covid so she doesn’t visit.

There are some dreadful homes but also some fantastic ones. I looked @ 14 before I picked the right one for my Mum. She loved it and was treated like the Queen!

Prior to that she had been in a home for 8 months which started off well but then I got a true insight into it, made a few polite complaints and they really had it in for me and Mum. Because it was spotlessly clean it impressed me and it had a good CQC report. It was also very near my home so I could visit every day and also take Mum out.

As I was in and out so often I got a much clearer picture of what was going on and realised that most of what the promised in their brochure was a pack of lies. Most meals were just heated up things, everything was the cheapest budget stuff (like orange squash which had no orange in it!) it claimed there were daily activities but there weren’t. They liked everybody in the day room watching TV so just one member of staff could oversee them. Mum never liked TV but if she said she would prefer to stay in her room she was told she was antisocial! It said there were trips out, Mum was there over the summer and only went out if I took her. Opposite the home was a little church and they couldn’t even be bothered to walk or push a few over the road when it was their summer fete. They also never sat in the gardens but the staff took their fag breaks out there!

So do not be fooled like I was by a very clean place …… the care is what is most important. This home spent more time cleaning than talking to residents. My Mum lost nearly 2 stones in weight because the meals were tiny and she was unhappy. Without telling the home I took her to the Dr who was shocked at how she looked and weighed her.

I reported all this and a lot more to the CQC and they said the home’s records showed she had actually gained weight. I argued that would they rather believe them than her own qualified GP and they didn’t reply. They absolutely pulled the wool over their eyes!! As soon as my Mum moved to her brilliant home she was so happy, well cared for and she regained the lost weight. They truly loved her there!

RED1

i agree with you, i have not been in a care home since i worked in one in the laundry. i have been in and out of hospitals in the last five years and although the doctors and surgeons are great, it is the nurses and the care assistants that do almost all of the work and the caring, the three glasgow hospitals that i have been a patient in, the staff were run off their feet, i saw on doctor snap his fingers at a nurse and i called him out on hit. i know there are some great care homes in the uk but some i would not want to leave a dog at never mind a relative.

maddyone

I think it was the right decision that carers should be vaccinated against Covid and the wrong decision to abandon that principle. The same with medics too.

Vaccination did not halt transmission so the result was that much needed staff were lost making a dire situation worse with no impact on the numbers of Covid infections.

You’re right Daisymae but I just think that if vaccinated there is less chance to catch Covid and if you do, it lasts (usually) for less time and makes a person less poorly. However, everyone reacts differently of course and this is a generalisation.

icanhandthemback

Has anything changed? My Mum was recently hospitalised with Aspiration Pneumonia. The NICE guideline were not followed so we wait to see if she will survive. We have put in a formal safeguarding complain but I have little faith in the system. I told the Hospital what had happened and they were quite happy to send her back to the Nursing Home when she was ready so it took my sister to leap up and down before the hospital acknowledged there was a serious safeguarding issue. Now she will stay in hospital until they can find another care setting if she recovers. Up until now, despite expressing concerns at the Nursing Home and paying a princely sum of over £6000 a month, I have had to ensure that somebody goes in every night to give her tea as she couldn't manage it by herself. Reassurances that the care staff would assist if we didn't do that were proved wrong when I turned up a couple of times about 2 and half hours after mealtimes to find her meal totally untouched. Every step of the way the Home minimised my Mum's condition as they were worried she would get CHC.

In her respite Care Home, she came back with half her tablets untouched and a raging UTI so she collapsed on the first night home. When we queried it, they had no explanation for the failure to medicate properly or detect the very obvious UTI. The safeguarding complaint process was a joke and fizzled out with nothing done. It is so worrying.

It truly is horrific!

When I was last in hospital. there was a lovely old lady lady across from me - all she could do bless her was smile, nothing else, and smile she did. If it wasn't for me she wouldn't have had a drink, shivered with the cold when the sun went down, or boiled in the blazing sun as the staff didn't pull the blinds over. Her drink would be left on her table at the end of the bloody bed! Which is exactly where her meal was left, not by nursing staff, but a cleaner who appeared to change roles at mealtimes. Said cleaner would then come back and collect the tray, sometimes asking if she wasn't hungry! Some would have just taken it away if it weren't for me telling them she needed feeding! Someone would then come and feed her a meal that had been sat out for about an hour. I was absolutely incensed! All of us that bay had been put there because they 'thought' we may have covid - none of did, and the staff would just look in at the door rather than come in, that was kept down to the bare minimum. Before I left, she was discharged 'home', and I remember saying that I wondered if she had care etc. She then came back a few hours later, as she lived on the 1st or 2nd floor and there was no lift so the ambulance staff couldn't get her up there! They then put the poor old lass in a side room, where there was no-one to feed her or give her a drink. I was discharged and she was still there - I have no doubt that she probably died in there.

I hate our local hellhole, but sadly reckon I will be in there again soon with a strangulated bowel - it's scary ....

I am just in the process of asking my SIL if the care homes could actually refuse hospital discharges, as this would be why many failed during this time. (I have a sneaking suspicion that they couldn't, or was it the owners of the homes being greedy when they should have known they hadn't the staff to cater for all these new residents?) He worked for hours and hours on end trying to keep the place afloat - he has since left care as the pressure was too much. He began to feel like he had to hurt himself so that he didn't have to go in. He was passionate about social care, and loved working with dementia residents, and they lost him - and thousands of others who didn't want the vaccine, which doesn't stop transmission anyway!

Hancock et al need to be in jail for crimes against humanity in my opinion!

LesLee7

Although it sounds an awful thing to say I was so glad my Mum had died before the pandemic. We didn't have much choice in a care home when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour and it was awful. I was 2-3 hours away so couldn't go daily/weekly. They had about 3-4 Managers in the time my Mum was there - about 4 years and each said they had been sent to "Make" improvements. It closed not long after my Mum had died and I'm not surprised.
Just to top it off they hounded me for a so called missed payment (from over 12 months earlier) just before Mum died - my sister had kept all receipts (she passed away just before my Mum) so I could show payments had been made. They eventually dropped it but not before threatening to take me to court. The "best " bit was I had a 5 day holiday after my sister died for a break and informed the home. I got back late at night and could see the answerphone flashing but found a card in the post so opened that first - it was a sympathy card from the home telling me Mum had died (the day after I'd gone away). I went to the answerphone and they had phoned at 5.30 AM that day to tell me but didn't think it would have been good to speak to me before sending a card.
My concern with care as it is is that I was here to help my Mum and sister but I am now on my own and God help me if I end up somewhere like that as with no family have no one to watch out for me. I hope to be able to stay in my own home if it comes to it.

*LesLee7

I am so sorry that happened to you, and it's a scary thought that some accountant/Social Worker could just put you 'anywhere', as that is what SW's are nowadays ...

I have already said that I will not be going into care and if I can't be looked after at home I will most definitely see myself off, hopefully I will still be able to, and it would be easy for me, I have the stuff at home to do it. The daughter I have left knows the score, and I want the house to go to her as she would NEVER be able to fund one for herself in this awful climate, at least she will have a paid for roof over her head.

What I really do need to do is arrange for my funeral to be paid for too, as she won't be able to afford it! She will be entitled to a Funeral Expenses Payment, but all that will do is pay for a very basic cremation, not a funeral exactly - not that there would be many there. Sadly neither can I afford to do a plan. When you are disabled and on benefits it's impossible sadly ...