"Lack of essential equipment for carers"

Firstly, I would like to say that over the past 5 years the care provided by NLC carers and the input from their manager has been nothing less than outstanding.  They go above and beyond with their care of my mother - who is in her late 80s -  and for that I’m forever indebted.  She is listened to, treated with dignity and receives exceptional personal care.

However, in 2023 the community OT providers agreed that a hoist was required to enable mum to be taken from her bedroom to the living room. To date this has still to be delivered and is now causing severe issues when mum cannot be transferred with the stedy. 

The story to date is, the community OT department was asked to assess my mum’s abilities and needs within the home and provide any equipment she required. A worker was allocated which, over time, resulted in various pieces of equipment being provided. A hoist, stedy, riser recliner and various bathroom equipment.

At a later stage, due to frailty she was subsequently assessed again and deemed to require a hoist for use in the living-room on days when she was unable to use the stedy. The hospital sized hoist which was provided was too big to be moved from the bedroom into the living-room.  Mum's OT who has been very good, tried everything to get it into the living-room to no avail.  It was concluded that we required a smaller hoist.  The OT did all the measurements, advising me that he had to go back and pass it to his manager.  

This was in 2023, since then my home has been visited by various workers of all grades including managers, meetings have been held, centred around the current hoist, all concluding a new smaller hoist was required.  Measurements have been taken on every visit, checked and rechecked to my disdain, all with the same result, that the current hoist is too big to go into the living-room.  I’ve lost count of the number of times measurements have been taken. In January 2024 I sent a link to the OT for a smaller hoist which would fit in the living-room that was discussed at one of our meetings.  I was advised the details would be passed to their manager.

I’m now asking the situation is reviewed and a hoist is provided as soon as possible as my mum recently had no option other than to be cared for in bed because the carers do not have the smaller hoist for use in the living-room and mum being too frail to use the Stedy. This situation has had a massive detrimental effect on my mum’s mental health and it is affecting me having to watch this decline and knowing there’s nothing neither I nor the carers can do to alleviate her distress. Plus, due to being cared for in bed her skin has also been affected around the sacral area.

It should have never come to this. The carers are doing their level best under very difficult circumstances of which they have no power to change.

I’m going to pursue an independent enquiry as to why a piece of essential equipment has taken so long to be ordered. I have been informed it was ordered a number of weeks ago special order.

In my view, this issue solely lies at the feet of the community OT department and it begs the question what is happening in households where the elderly disabled don’t have someone fighting their corner and fighting is how it feels to me.  I find it absolutely draining and frustrating being caught up in this system. Questions must be answered.

I’m seeking an independent review of the system and I’m hoping this comes to fruition.

Bear in mind NHS England is to be abolished in a move to cut bureaucracy to reduce duplication. This situation is obviously in a much, much smaller scale but there are similarities. Many people doing the same job in a system which is holding carers back from delivering optimum care to the service users due to not having the right equipment and the impact is devastating for the patient and their families.