"Elderly Father with dementia"

I’m writing to share my experience with care at home for my elderly father aged 88 who has dementia and recently experienced a seizure. His care at home package had to be increased to two carers per visit, four times a day, after his five weeks in hospital following the seizure. This took time to get sorted as the local authority put in place a temporary team initially after hospital discharge before the permanent care arrangement started.

This was a very stressful time as lots of phone calls had to be made between services who didn’t seem to be coordinating between one another and I, as the family carer, was the one having to deal with the problems as they arose and sort them by calling the relevant bodies. e.g his blister pack meds prescription hadn’t been forwarded to pharmacist and he had one days meds left which I had to sort out, he had a rash on his legs which hadn’t been properly attended to and if it hadn’t been for a district nurse dropping in to take blood, could have ended up a more serious situation to deal with, possibly cellulitis. He needed a hospital bed because of his risk of falling, which he did on a couple of occasions during the interim weeks after discharge. Again thankfully the district nurse sorted this out for me following her visit. 

After all this Dad was given a dedicated team of two carers which, we were told, would be his regular team and things settled down a bit. These carers were excellent and provided the care and confidence both Dad and the family needed when dealing with an elderly family member with dementia, especially with all the COVID restrictions in place. 

Unfortunately, three weeks in, this situation has been shattered because the care company “decided” to remove this dedicated team and replace them with a new team of carers who have never cared for Dad in the past and have no idea what he eats or where things are in the house. He’s not getting showered regularly and is not being cared for properly. I found him in bed yesterday, his Alert pendant lying on the floor where he couldn’t access it, and not smelling very fresh. I checked the book they write in and discovered new names of carers and his last shower was 4 days ago.  He didn’t know any of them and was quite confused. On top of that, they had left discarded masks and gloves lying in back garden, despite there being a medical bin provided for disposal of these  items.

I immediately contacted the care company to complain and also to find out why the dedicated team had been removed, without even giving the family a courtesy call of explanation, especially under the circumstances of dads dementia and COVID situation. I was not happy with the excuses I got and have reported the whole situation to the local authority social services senior management making sure they know this is a formal complaint.

I am waiting on their reply and hopefully a satisfactory outcome.

This whole situation has been extremely stressful to me and the whole family. Why change something which was obviously working perfectly well ? I just cannot understand this and am waiting patiently for a reasonable explanation. ideally I would like the dedicated carers to be reinstated as this was working for everyone, especially dad.