Homecare packages - yet another HSE shambles

Heighway61

It is a shocking organisation from top to bottom. All covering their own asses, hoping not to be found out. Not only the over-paid middle-managers, supervisors and PHNs but, in my family's experience, the care assistants also. Wannabe nurses and doctors with a not-in-my-job-description attitude. Meanwhile, my elderly mother goes unshowered, her hair unwashed, her nails unfiled and cutting into her toes. It's all about them, not the needs of the vulnerable, infirm, disabled, sick.

StrawbsM

I had to take a “leave of absence”, floppy, under duress from the HSE. I’m now in year 7 of caring with no end in sight. Carers leave from a job is only for 12 months so that’s gone now. I’m getting older and job opportunities for me are reducing and I doubt I’ll get into a 9-5 office job again.

”Life begins at 40” they said. Not for me it didn’t. I’m existing not living.

Floppybits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119464221#Comment_119464221

Sorry to hear that. It is a terrible situation that the HSE put people into. When they were saying this to my family they were expecting not only would I and my brothers take a leave of absence but also our wives and they didn't care that we had bills to pay, their only goal was to get my father out of hospital. In the end we turned it back on them and said we will take him home when you have all the supports in place that put a stop to them.

Patrick2010

And yet there are unlimited funds to care for unlimited numbers of Ukranians. Think how much difference a fraction of the 3 billion earmarked for Ukranians care next year could make if allocated to home care for our own elderly.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119464221#Comment_119464221

Similar here except I'm out of work for "only" 2 years. Thanks to a poor choice of degree, I found it tough enough to carve out a mediocre career over a period of 20 years. Gone now.

No carer's allowance either as I don't pass the means test thanks to my savings. That's my reward for saving.

Previously, I had some experience with an elderly relative with dementia who went into a nursing home this was about 16 years ago before the Fair Deal came in. Absolute sh*tshow. Now I'm going through a homecare situation with a different relative - another sh*tshow.

BrianD3

Just to show how long "they" have been "talking" about regulating the homecare sector.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/new-homecare-regulations-promised-1.868811

12 years later and only now are we reaching the stage of public consultation on draft regulations and who knows how long it will take now. These absurd delays are a terrible indictment of our politicians and civil service.

FF, FG, Martin, Varadkar, a succession of Ministers for Health - all useless spoofers. Or, alternatively, looking after their buddies in the homecare agency sector, how much profit has been made by these companies over the years? Public money handed over by the inept HSE, corners cut and still no regulation as of August 2022.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119464083#Comment_119464083

As I said in an earlier post, the home helps of yesteryear have been replaced by caregivers. Home helps could and did so much more. Personal care, a bit of housework, cook a dinner, friendly banter…..

Caregivers do the bare minimum. A quick wipe with a flannel. Throw on whatever clothes come to hand. Then goodbye.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119465548#Comment_119465548

I wouldn't have too much of a problem with caregivers focusing on personal care and not doing housework etc. Personal care has to be the priority and home HCA should be treated as professional healthcare workers.

The travesty is that personal care is NOT being done. It doesn't take long to wash a person well with a basin and sponge but carers are often in too much of a rush to even do that. Calls that should take an hour (as agreed with the HSE) are being done in 15 minutes. Is the carer and /or the agency being paid for the hour?

BrianD3

More problems this week with no shows and rushed care calls. I complained to the HSE again and as has happened previously, I got a "Mary is dealing with that and she's on leave" response.

If someone is doing a HSE funded homecare call in 15 minutes that the HSE has stipulated as being a 60 minute call:

a) somebody, either the carer or the care agency is stealing from the taxpayer and the HSE is too useless to do anything about it.

b) it is highly likely that ABUSE is taking place. Abuse takes many forms and rushing, cutting corners and not facilitating independence can easily result in it. E.g. if the care recipient can dress themselves slowly with prompting and assistance but the carer is in too much of a rush for this so just does it all themselves to save time - that's abuse.

These homecare companies are all over social media promoting themselves and their "client centred approach". It is sickening stuff.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119501010#Comment_119501010

Just wondering. Does the 60 minutes include traveling time? I know that there was a dispute a few years ago over traveling allowance.

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119501255#Comment_119501255

No. In my experience it's a full hour on site, although some may try arrive late and leave early. We asked around and found names of good and bad people and we were lucky.

In terms of practical advice.

The local nurse must visit before you get more hours. If you are requesting more hours and nurse has not visited then you won't get more hours. If nurse visits then you might get more.

If you can get finances, from family, savings, pension, remortgage house etc.you may be able to buy services but they tend to be expensive and you may run out of money after a few years. 24/7

You may also be able to claim fuel allowance, carers allowance, home insulation, help from meals and wheels, de Paul, various elderly care charities.

You may be able to get help on site by family and cousins or grandkids ideally a rota with people who care.

There are "not approved" carers such as cash in hand, illegal immigrants such as phillipino groups, or Brazilian, who can be contacted through Facebook. Many of these live in and undercut official services.

Depending on needs the live in home help may have a day job, or work part time elsewhere. Just having someone for nights only can really help.

The HSE or other groups or charities may offer crisis or emergency help. This can be handy if family home carer is sick or needs to take time off.

We found previous home help paid direct through mindme.ie website

We also got help from check Republic from a local there and job postings there. Ask polish friends is someone job hunting or willing to move to Ireland.

We also advertised on Facebook etc.

We have gone through various live in carers some good, some bad, it's tough to get anyone even paid.

The HSE is a disaster, in our case we need overnight person at house, asleep and someone a few hours a day. The HSE only provides 5 hours a week with the rest paid by family and shared rota. We are lucky we found a foreign couple who needed accomodation and they do weekday evenings and overnight cover. They both have day jobs. It's not ideal but it's working and it's within our budget. We expect to be out of funds in 6 years based on burn down of assets. We are 3 years into the system and have gone through about 4 live in carers. We have had no paid carers for months at a time while we looked for replacements. Relatively speaking we are fortunate. We could offset some of the cost through taxes but I don't know the details.

batman75

Every county should have a health care team. If your relative is elderly and needs homecare. You approach the head of the team. They then liase with you and devise a plan to provide either homecare or where required assist you in transitioning your relative into a nursing home. Once a homecare plan is devised then the head of the homecare team should make contact with you once a month to monitor how it's going and where required revise accordingly. It would be up to homecare head of the county to make sure, without needing to contact the relative to make sure that the plan is being delivered.

Each person being given homecare would remain an open case until either transfer to a nursing home or passing away. If the head of the team is taking holidays hand over responsibility to a deputy.

A huge problem in this country is that there is simply no accountability. My own interaction with the health service revolves around mental health. I've gone privately. The first person make a diagnosis on our first meeting. She wasn't seen again by me. The second person said I was sufficiently ok at the time of meeting not to need tablets. No follow up by the second person to see how I was. Not even one call. The best I ever got was after a GP consultation. My doctor fair play rang me to check in and see how I was. Honestly that alone was better than any tablet. To know that someone cared.

These 'experts' that we are sent to regarding mental health have their degrees and they may theoretically understand depression but I found they haven't a clue.

Dilbert75

This topic is currently becoming relevant for my family. This is the most grim reading I've had in quite a while.

StrawbsM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119731992#Comment_119731992

If you need to vent, feel free to tag me on this thread or PM me. I won’t be able to change your situation but I understand that we sometimes need a vector to let off some steam. I wish you and yours well.

Still not a full cohort of carers back. HSE still won’t put their own workers alongside agency workers in order to fill in the gaps. I’ve sent details onto a legal practice. Can you all keep your fingers crossed that they take up my case?

BrianD3

It's the October holiday weekend/school mid term break and surprise, surprise, the outsourced service that is bad at the best of times is now even worse. As predictably happens every Christmas, Easter, mid term break, public holiday weekend and for the entire summer.

To anyone who has yet to go down the road of needing homecare from the HSE/agencies for a relative, either paying yourself or with a package, expect to have to give up your own job or at least significantly reduce hours to provide an unpaid service. Meanwhile, agencies will be providing a less than half arsed service for the 100+ million euro of taxpayers' money that they receive per year from the HSE.

IME there are constant problems with truncated calls or no shows. Is the HSE paying for no shows? Also, If a recipient has one hour's care under a homecare package and the agency carer rushes through it in 15 minutes and then does the same for the next three calls, is the carer and/or agency getting paid for 4 hours having only worked 1? And what value is added by the many managers working for these agencies - seems to be a lot of them and they never have a clue what is going on with the carers. It seems to me like a case of public money given with inept oversight to the private sector who then rip the piss. An epic scandal in the making I'd say.

Heighway61

We finally gave up on them. The final straw came when two different "carers" missed or mixed up my mother's medication. She is coming to live with us and we will provide her personal care ourselves. She's not happy leaving her home of the last 40 years but it's for the best.

If you can afford it, go private, watch them like a hawk and hire and fire until you get someone who is a professional and who cares.

If going HSE, good luck. It is possible to get one good HSE carer but highly unlikely to get more than that, the partner if a team of two, shift/holiday cover etc. Make full use of the allocated PHN if a good one (works for the client first) to fight your corner. If PHN is not so good (works for company first) then the whole thing is going to be a real struggle, never mind trying to navigate offices full of managers, coordinators, supervisors, administrators.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119809092#Comment_119809092

Carers are not supposed to give medication. They’re not qualified to.

Heighway61

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119809369#Comment_119809369

Yep, they prompt the client to take them. My mother's carer missed several prompts and prompted twice instead of once.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119465548#Comment_119465548

My partner works as a care assistant and does all of the stuff in the first few lines. Are we thinking of HSE ones ?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119809495#Comment_119809495

I’m going back almost 5 years to my MILs home help. She had one lady for about 10 years, who would do anything. The later ones got her up, washed, dressed and fed. Couldn’t give eye drops! We had to do that and give her tablets. If the bed needed changing, we had to have the clean set left in the bedroom. No more washing floors. Personal care only. Yes, these were all HSE.

BrianD3

Things are getting worse - we get about 10.5 hours of homecare per week (after waiting for over a year to get anything) and the service gets more shambolic all the time. Considerably worse than when I started this thread. There is now a problem EVERY day - no shows, calls done hours late, truncated calls, carers rushing and being sloppy. Very poor record keeping. Seemingly no management or supervision on the part of their employer.

I'm now pretty much convinced that homecare agencies and/or their employees are stealing from the taxpayer and that time card fraud is going on while care recipients get neglected.

I should be complaining every day but it is exhausting to have to do this.

This should be borne in mind the next time someone says that more homecare packages would help alleviate he latest trolley crisis. Some of this probably comes from homecare agencies who see it as an opportunity for more money.

HSE are a bunch of useless apathetic morons who won't manage the service that they have outsourced to greedy agencies.

They can't even get basics like communication right. I have already made formal complaints about the HSE's homecare administration dept. The HSE's complaints officer agreed with me that communication was unacceptable and that he would be recommending changes. Nothing has changed.

Floppybits

The whole system seems to be broken from top to bottom.

Flinty997

Have to say carers are unsung hero's. Some amazing people working in it. But it's a poorly paid profession, and its hard to retain good people in it.

Its that lack of investment in people that causes a lot of the issues.

Like others had experience of it for years, with the same experience and problems others have listed.

SAMTALK

The lack of organisation / ability in the HSE is frightening to say the least

It's like they have lost control and are finding it hard to regain it again. There are too many admin staff in HSE first and foremost, especially high up and no accountability whatsoever. Everything is passed around and around until you give up

You to into a shambolic A & E with 2 options , die or get better straight away. unfortunately this is not the real world and there is no provision made for the inbetween

14 years ago my father was in hospital and the mad in the bed beside him was there over 12 months. One of the staff told us that medically he was well fit to be released but the family refused to take him as there was no support in place and so there was a standoff and this man was taking up a valuable bed for way longer than needed.

It's a shambles and we dont seem to have anyone to take the bull by the horns and knock some heads together

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089664#Comment_120089664

I think you are missing part of the puzzle point.

While the HSE has it problems. There simply isn't enough money for home carers. So while in total its costs a lot, the people working in it, don't get paid much and the quality of the service suffers.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40856981.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/2022/08/16/homecare-sector-called-out-by-government/

SAMTALK

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089780#Comment_120089780

I think you missed my point. The money is being spent in the wrong areas IMO. Too may high up admin on big money but not delivering the goods

Caring is one of the most difficult times in life. You can find yourself a carer at any age, and indeed you could find yourself an 80 year old carer for 50 year old son or daughter, but most commonly it’s between 35-55. As posters have said it often means giving up or cutting back work, or greatly struggling to hold down a job with hospital appointments & unexpected events intervene. Trying to get supports is a mess, ever more so.

I was fortunate in that, though my late mother had physical frailties, she was very much together in her mentation and had simple practical & some innovative solutions to her own care needs, always having in mind that I should continue working for my own pension needs etc. She had the system worked out then, but it has become so complex now I do t know how she’d fare now.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089882#Comment_120089882

Be that as it may. The money allocated can't meet demand. Also money allocated to the private companies isn't being passed on to the carers working in those private companies.

SAMTALK

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090115#Comment_120090115

It would be a start along with better investment in the HSE. Re the private companies , this needs to be investigated.

Again there is no accountability and money leaking everywhere, including the shambles of the new hospital

Flinty997

Much as I'm critical of the NCH its a different issue.