A piece of advice that we were given, by a care professional, when looking for a home for my mother-in-law is never make an appointment for a first visit to a care home - just turn up (obviously not at meal times, early, late). The theory being that if they do not have time to show you round and answer your questions then how are they going to treat your "loved one"?
Interesting as an education professional I always say that to people looking for a school! Go in on spec 'to book an appointment'.
A lot can be gleaned by their attitude and the general atmosphere
Not sure that the waiting lists are always as long as people make them out to be, although if you are looking for a place then any wait is too long. Again when looking for a home for my MIL those who said they had a waiting list were coming back to us within a month with a place.
sorry if this sounds callous, but care homes tend to have a high turn over of residents.... the age and general frailty means few stay more than a couple of years
My 87 year old mother was taken into hospital on Monday suffering with confusion and the loss of Mobility
She was well looked after in A&E albeit that it took 24hrs to find her a bed in a ward.
We where told that she would go into a ward that caters for the elderly but this never happened ended up in a general ward.
The care that she receives in this ward is appalling a complete lack of understanding and no compassion whatsoever the staff in the majority are less than helpful I approached the nurses station to ask a question suddenly phones where picked up along with notes and the others suddenly had to leave.
I spotted the ward sisters door and she was sitting at her desk as I approached she picked up the phone and shut the door.
I ended up talking to a nurse that did try to help but really did not know anything about my mum.
I eventually spoke the ward sister after telling my thoughts on her actions.
She just looked and said that she was short staffed and very busy seemed plenty staff to me, she also new little about my Mum.
Both my sister and I asked if Mum had been checked to see if she was dehydrated and was assured that it was not that.
Mum was shaking really badly the nurse come over plonked three tablets down and turned and left I asked how she was supposed to take them as her hands where shaking water was going everywhere in the end I held the cup to her mouth the nurse just stood there and watched, next morning I walked in to find that she had a jug of water but no beaker to drink out off.
But to cut a very long story short we insisted that she be checked again for dehydration and low and behold it was confirmed last night and that Mum was to be put on a saline drip for three days as she was very Dehydrated this may or maybe not be the reason for her condition.
After all the recent news about NHS hospitals no lessons seemed to have been learnt.
We complained to the a Dr who said sorry but all the staff in that ward are Agency
There where plenty more incidents whilst I was there its very upsetting to see the way elderly patients are treated
Hope mum is on the mend.
I know if it had been me, I would have taken mum straight home and made the doctor come back out to her. I would then make an official complaint and inform the media.
Sorry and apologies just don't cut it with me, they are just words that reel of meaningless tongues too easily these days.
I hate to think if the same situation were to ever happen with my wife's mum. Juliet is a ward manager for our local hospital, there would be hell to pay.
Not sure that the waiting lists are always as long as people make them out to be, although if you are looking for a place then any wait is too long. Again when looking for a home for my MIL those who said they had a waiting list were coming back to us within a month with a place.
sorry if this sounds callous, but care homes tend to have a high turn over of residents.... the age and general frailty means few stay more than a couple of years
We were told that the average "stay" is about five years - and that was certainly the case with my MIL.
But as you say Meg it is a case of "dead men's beds"
We never had much trouble getting a place it was finding a place that we felt mum would be happy at mum is very house proud and she would hate living somewhere that is dirty and believe me we saw plenty that would benefit from a good clean.
Those that provide Extra care are can be harder to find
In the end we could not find anywhere in Croydon most had been closed or just not suitable we moved mum to tonbridge in Kent
My thoughts are sincerely with you and I wish you well
Very sadly the elderly are suffocating the underfunded NHS, I have a little sympathy with the Nursing Staff, most are under severe pressure to deliver a service that your dear mother deserve in her latter years
HaveaBeer, sorry to read of yours and your mother's experiences. It is distressing for family members who obviously want the best for their loved ones when things are not right. I had an awful experience when my mother went into hospital. A lot of things are common sense but don't get done. I had several meetings with the consultant and he was very defensive, and being offended that I had criticised the staff. They deserved criticising. Mum had a needle in the back of her hand and it had been taped to a piece of plastic which jutted out beyond her fingers. She had lost the use of her other arm due to a stroke but every time she tried to pick her beaker up, the piece of plastic was pushing it away. Her call button was also out of reach. I collared the Sister and asked if I should produce a sign on my computer reminding staff to leave her call button on the bed. My irony was lost on her. The next time I visited, the Sister had made such a sign! Unbelievable. There were agency nurses on that ward too and I got that excuse plus that the (normal) staff had meetings to attend and paperwork to complete. I don't know when the NHS went wrong but it is not in good shape. I did make an official complaint but got nowhere, they all close ranks. I was also shocked to learn that in the early days of Mum's hospital confinement, the then consultant had written 'DNR' on her notes, which stands for Do Not Resuscitate. I went berserk, asking what right they had to make that decision. Mum eventually went into a care home and from there one time had to be rushed to A&E, I thought she was going to die, the doc asked me if I wanted him to do his best for her and I said, yes of course, then they rushed her to resus. In the end they still maintained that they did have the ultimate decision to let her go and not resuscitate. Keep at 'em HaveaBeer. Best wishes.
On TV news yesterday the hospital mum was in is now in the top six worst run in the country it has a daming report from cqc who carried out a spot check its now being run by the administrators.
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