This article describes my circumstances exactly
The disabled are waiting hours for help and when help does arrive, their is not enough time allocated.
Often disabled are just fed simple meals as the carers just do not have time to make proper meals.
People are left sleeping in chairs or on the sofa as there are not enough carers available.
Frail and elderly are left in unsafe situations.
Elderly are sat for hours waiting for food, unable to make food themselves.
These are exactly my issues, although the elderly i help and support, have care packages and carers, the care is insufficent. There is not enough time to make proper meals. There is simly no night care so
without unpaid carers, friends etc , the elderly have to sleep in a chair.
Their lives are diminished and made miserable, days and days of sat watching TV as there is no help going out, simply home care.
The social importance of day care for both elderly and disabled has never been appreciated, a reason to get up and dressed and smart in the morning. Most have now closed for “care in the community”.
even worse when you come to smaller countries like Scotland .
the effect is increased compared to size of population , i read something the other day that stated bed blocking now costs £500 million over the past 10 years , and thats despite a legal claim from the scottish government that they were going to completely eliminate bed blocking within the next few years …
now all they use is “” its better than the labour run Welsh government “” , “”" its better than England “” .
and the previous health secretary saying theres no such thing in Scotland as bed blocking.
the official figures shows 2.4 million bed days since 2014 - 2018 at a cost of £234 per day.
I know when my dad was alive he was kept in hospital for 5 weeks longer than needed once. and was handed to a diff ward every day or every second day.
one of my elderly neighbours was kept in hospital for 3 months when her family chased things up , social services blamed the hospital for not arranging paperwork to be passed onto them , and the hospital blamed social services for not collecting the paperwork .
and 2 years ago an other elderly neighbour had his home help cut from 4 times a day to just twice a week in the morning ONLY , the local cleaning ladies that came in to clean his home were helping him . thankfully the new council that took over increased his care back to 2 carers twice a day and single carer in the afternoon at his request.
when my dad was alive 6 yrs ago , he was for ever having his care package changed with no notice … he was sworn by the leader it would ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be the same carers to reduce his stress , the carers were changed every single day some times twice a day . he was promised 40 mins in the morning , the morning carer came in on her own instead of 2 . and she would be in and out within 15 mins . we raised complaints several times about her and we were “” assured she was being sent for re training “” .
carers not showing up at all with no notice from anyone , when we would complain we just got the same rubbish …
Social services for the area are at braking point , priority going to those closer / living in the city with new patients being added daily these require more personal care needs …
or “” oh , i wander why no one showed , let me check … then your informed oh we had it scheduled no one was to come in today “”.
mum and i had complained that often we had a shock one day when 2 carers showed up along with 2 other women … the carers shot up stairs to attend to dad and the other 2 just helped them selves into the home sat on the couch … mum asked who they were . and we were told we are from head office ,could we please ignore them for now … when the 2 carers left 40 mins later. the women introduced them selves as from head office again … due to the number of complaints we and others had made for the area , they were monitoring the care team for this area . then asked us other questions , changes we would like to see , any other issues we had …
so mum mentioned that carers some not all , were coming into the home during winter without knocking snow , slush off their shoes and just walking over all the carpets … the next day a carer showed up with 4 boxes off overshoes for our home. and that the care team have been warned to use these in future .