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There seems to be a marked dearth of people queuing up to contribute to this thread in any way - although, who knows, maybe hundreds have filled in the questionnaire.

My immediate reaction to it is to say that, in the presence of so many homes and care facilities that are wholly inadequate, the commission would do well to concentrate its efforts on bringing these up to scratch via frequent inspections and proper enforcement, rather than using its resources for a project such as this.

When seeking a home for my mother in Devon, I saw about 12 places, and only one was up to standard as far as I (an ex-social worker with the elderly) was concerned. Some were totally unfit.

Please CQC, focus on this, your prime function, and leave some sociologist somewhere to do this sort of "research."

Hello Mishap I filled in the questionnaire on behalf of my aunt who is 97. I doubt if we will ever know how many did fill it in apart from ourselves.

I filled it in. MY MIL has daily homecare to give her a shower and make sure she takes her meds. They have never given her a shower or a wash because she refuses and they don't try to persuade her. As a nurse I had many such refusals from elderly people on the district and I always got them round in the end with gentle persuasion I didn't take no for an answer and let them get dirty and neglected as she now is. Its very frustrating that this work has been commisioned out to Care Companies whose staff have little in the way of training and supervision but are regulated by the CQC.

suebailey1, you described the care or lack of for my aunt to a T. That also included flat cleaning. If she said that she did not want the flat cleaned, they did not bother. My aunt never bought any cleaning materials but the girls also never asked for any. A shambles. The hour was usually spent talking and drinking coffee.

We had a bit of a breakthrough yesterday - a new SW went and was horrified and has started an investigation. MIL also agreed to a bath!!! _ Call Dyno Rod!

I tend to agree with Mishap. The CQC should concentrate their resources on their principal responsibilities. I looked at the survey and it seems to be mainly about the process of getting care for an older person and the resulting experience. Although it says you must have the care of a child to qualify to respond to the survey the 'sandwich' nature of the problem seems to have very little relevance in the questions.

We need to rely on the CQC getting on with their job and inspecting and reporting as often as possible. Too often, reports are very limited and out of date. And as Mishap says, enforcement is essential.

GNHQ says at the top of the page you would like to know what we think of the surveys. I didn't think this one (I did read it) is very useful. The CQC could ask GN a survey of our own about the experience of finding care for people and they might get useful feedback.

I can see that GN is a resource that could be of interest to a lot of businesses and organisations. I just hope you get financial contributions from them that helps keep GNHQ going!

My husband and I had my mother to live with us when she could no longer look after herself. It seemed easier than driving 200 miles every time she had a fall, which was frequent. Her worst nightmare was the thought of being 'put in a home' so we promised not to do that. It had already broken her heart to leave her perfect bungalow in the country and move to our terraced house in south London.
I have rheumatoid arthritis which had been well under control until she came - she decided she did not like my lovely kind husband so would not even accept a cup of tea from him so I did everything. She woke me several times a night to use the toilet. She phoned my sister (who didn't visit during the four years our mother was with us) telling her we were stealing her money, ill treating her. My sister chose to believe her. I became an ailing shadow. We had just one week of respite, arranged by the social services, and we locked ourselves in for the week and slept.
My mother paid to have a handicap shower room built and two bedrooms converted into a little home. We don't have money, so she had to use some of her bungalow sale money, which upset her badly and caused more phone calls to my sister about our abuse of her. She kept her pension and gave us £20 per week from her Attendance Allowance, paid for the carer, and sent the rest my sister. It didn't cover the extra heat and phone calls but I was too tired to argue.
During the building work she joked and laughed with the builders - it seemed she was still inside there, hidden away. The builders could see the situation from the outside and suggested we have a day out, they would look after Mum. We did. Next day they told us she had been up and dressed, making them cups of tea and bacon sandwiches. They loved her.
Social services did what they could within their budgets, but the 'care' element was useless. We could only get the 7am to 7.30 slot, which meant 7.20 because they have to get to the next client by 7.30. Mum was difficult to wake and I had to get up to let the carer in because she didn't want to keep a key. The care was a cup of tea and a wipe with a flannel plus one shower a week.
During all this time I could not go and visit my distant grandchildren, nor could they visit us.
The last weeks of her life were in hospital which was almost worse. I drove to visit every day or she would not have eaten. Nobody fed her or held a beaker of tea or water for her, except some of the other patients. I adored my mother, always wanted her approval, but the day she died was a relief.
My sister came to the funeral and asked why the bungalow money was not still untouched, we should have paid for our own 'home improvements.' She asked where the will was, Mum had told her there was a will. There was no will and the remaining money was split. My sister has not spoken to me since.

Before you do what we did, please consider your own health and circumstances, remember there is no real care available. You will be the care giver. The kindly women who do it have no time, they are also abused by the greedy system.

I've worked in the NHS as a health care assistant and in residential and nursing homes for the elderly, both contracted and agency, accepting both private and DWP funded service users (think that's the new term!). I haven't found a home that I would use for my elderly parents and quite a lot I wouldn't even put my dogs in. I have worked with "carers" who don't know the meaning of the word and whose pay and conditions are reprehensible so who in one way can blame them?

I always said that I would never place my parents in a home, with my experience and knowledge of the system I thought I would be able to cope. And I probably would but I hadn't taken into account my parents and their opinions and their unremitting support for "Wonder Boy" and his wife (brother and sister in law.) She has always said that at the least sign of needing care they would be in a home, and now they are in need of that thing. They're refusing care to come into the home, they don't believe that my sister in law would put them into a home - she also doesn't believe homes are THAT bad - and they don't know why I have to be so nasty to bro and SIL. Apart from his being preferred to me since birth, childhood and adulthood and her being a decidedly spiteful human being. Anything I have tried to do he and/or she have blocked and I can see a Social Services referral from me looming and a real family rift. So yes, as AnnieGran says, be very careful and consider all contingencies when considering giving care at home because you will very possibly be the loser all the way round.

And CQC, from someone who has worked in the NHS, the justice system and constantly worked within multi agency settings and personnel, get off your backsides, stop with the PR driven surveys and do what you're supposed to, with whoever and whatever and use your strengths to make this Government, ANY Government realise that the system is at meltdown, because the reason that CQC don't sanction and close more homes is because there aren't enough places in other homes to accommodate and bad owners know it. Get availability of good social or continuing care sorted and that will also resolve problems with bed blocking. But most of all, stop pretending that it isn't happening. Rant over!!

Good rant, Billie, especially your last paragraph

I am one of the club sandwich generation - have an elderly mother, two offspring and 3 grandchildren ............. I am exhausted with caring/worrying for them all and feel I have little time of my own. I feel I am "on call" all of the time, I know I should appreciate the fact they feel they all confide in me, also that I should learn to say no to some of their demands. I guess it's self inflicted though

Wow Billiegirl and AnnieGran what an eye opener. My MIL has dementia and lives in an assisted living flat. So far, she is not too bad and the Manager there is very good to her. Our daughter does the cleaning and my husband takes her shopping weekly. She also gets visits from our other two sons. So far, things are working well but we get no help from anyone apart from Attendance Allowance. MIL was diagnosed and that was that, nothing. I daresay that one day she will end up in a care home but I cannot and will not just place her in any home that will not be suitable. I dread the day coming when such a decision has to be made.

I started the survey but it seemed a complete waste of time. Is there anyone who would say that good quality care was unimportant? Who would not be interested in impartial comparisons of care and who doesn't need sources of information but is instead happy to do their own research and form their own opinions without reference to anyone else?

The answer to the survey "most respondents would value more information, better quality care and the opportunity to be more involved in the decisions which affect the experience of being cared for" is surely a forgone conclusion. Mishap, Billie et al are right, we don't need money spent on this exercise. Nor do we need to waste our time on it. The problem is that good care needs to be paid for, sometimes for years. The sale of a typical fully paid for house will only cover 6years in a care home however you slice it!

If we live long enough, we all get old, frail and infirm, perhaps with disabling health conditions and we have to face up to this reality. It seems to me that it is so difficult to co-ordinate all the various agencies that provide care and support that the solution lies with cutting out the middlemen. Half the problems can surely be summed up by one of the survey questions which from memory was worded something like "would you prefer a care home to provide residential care only or nursing care as well?" I mean honestly :0 it's the split between personal social care and nursing care that is so upsetting - no-one fed my Dad in hospital and we were not allowed to visit during mealtimes. We remonstrated with staff - how is it that he was comatose and unresponsive for the time we sat with home (every hour that was allowed) and yet as soon as we left the ward he was reported to be sitting up in bed drinking tea and eating toast. The filthy sweat soaked sheets and pillows showed no signs of crumbs, nor his unbrushed teeth in a thrush riddled mouth. Finally I brought in a meal and asked the staff to help me feed him. His blinking astonishment at being told to sit up and feed himself was palpable. The trolley was at the wrong height to fit to his bed and the staff on the ward had to get someone to show them how to adjust it. Dad's trembling hand was incapable of carrying a cup of tea or a fork of food to his mouth and the filthy sheets had no food or tea stains at all. Dad ate with great chomping relish, really snapping at the food and gulping it down, whilst crumbs and splashes decorated the sheets. None of the staff could look us in the face after that.

It was just as well he died really. His feet were crushed against the footboard -he was 6'3 and jammed in a standard size bed, so he'd have had to have them amputated due to loss of circulation. And his genitalia... Well he hadn't been washed during the whole time he was in hospital. I wish I could have cried over his naked body, but I was just filled with hatred at the callous neglect and lack of humanity. Even Saddam Hussain was treated better.

Sorry, didn't didn't mean to dump, but actually I am boiling mad that the survey only wants responses from those who are currently still providing care. Those who have recently buried loved ones and seen the system through to the bitter end....their experience is apparently not worthy of inclusion.

makes it better. Cheers.

"I haven't found a home that I would use for my elderly parents and quite a lot I wouldn't even put my dogs in. I have worked with "carers" who don't know the meaning of the word and whose pay and conditions are reprehensible so who in one way can blame them?"

"....get off your backsides, stop with the PR driven surveys and do what you're supposed to..."

Exactly Billie.

I too have both professional (SW) and personal experience of the system and it is indeed in meltdown.

The experiences outlined above are the norm and not the exception - and the CQC is farting around with these surveys. Sigh.

I did find a decent home for my parents and it stood out as a beacon of love in an uncaring system. And it was a bit scruffy (I am sure the CQC will have commented on that) and quite cheap, and it was a RH when a NH had been recommended........but the staff CARED. CQC needs to find a way to measure that, because it is what matters. And to do that they need to be out there more.

So CQC, save your funds for what really matters.

Will they read any of this? Will they care?

AnnieGran| Your account was so sad and I think you have been very badly treated by your sister. It's a pity she didn't see fit to do more, rather than criticising you. It seems to me that the people who do the most to help their parents are the ones who are the least appreciated.

This must have been very upsetting. I hope life is better for you now. now.

I heard a discussion on this on Woman's Hour today. The survey was mentioned, but to be honest the problems which emerged from listeners were so upsetting and so difficult to address that mere inspections, even if sufficiently robust, would go nowhere to solving this systemic problem.