"Older Adult social care"

Gran was diagnosed with mixed dementia in July 2020, this has been a fast paced decline and at the end of last year it was decided as a family we needed a bit of support and so in January I referred her to Bellshill social work department for a needs assessment. Talked to a lovely lady who explained the process and I explained that ideally we were looking for someone to come in daily to assist with a morning personal care routine ( showering, dressing, incontinence aide changed etc) and for some respite for my Grandfather through the week as he was the main carer and this was beginning to affect his health. 

At the beginning of February we were informed that home care services would start a week later, no assessment of need had been completed but we were assured that this would be done in due course, around this time a woman from the local day care facility for older adults became involved and offered 1 hour of respite a week. This has now been increased to 2 hours per week. 

The home care service which was supposed to provide a bit of support and make life easier has been nothing but a source of stress since it began. The carers have been lovely but have shown up asking what needs done as there is no plan in place, as no assessment has been completed we are seen by the reablement team and they ask when gran was discharged from the hospital. Getting a copy of the schedule is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and it feels like we are inconveniencing the staff when we ask if this could be sent out, by the time it arrives its often out of date or has been missing days on it. 

Whilst we understand that gran is not a priority visit as she does not need help with medication or food we don't think that it is acceptable that she is not being seen until 11 am in the day especially as she is up just after 8 most days. We have tried to talk to the Home Services manager about this several times and whilst the visit times had been changed to before 9.30 which was ideal and worked well for gran, this only lasted a few weeks before the visits were moved back to 11 am again. On speaking to the home care team about this move we've been told that this has been because they are short staffed and because Gran had nothing wrong with her so she was not a priority. This is despite the fact that she is incontinent and unable to mange any personal care task without prompt and supervision. Had an assessment been completed they would know this!! This service is not working had the needs assessment been completed we could have looked at our options and perhaps asked for an individual budget through option 1 SDS after the completion of a Guided Self Assessment but it seems this is a pipe dream as we haven't managed to get passed this first stage all the while grans condition continues to decline.