Unsuitable care home

[RosieEliza]

My sister is severely disabled after a stroke in March this year. Since then she has been in hospital and in rehab centre - she also has a continuing infection which means she has to be barrier nursed. Monday this week she was transferred to what is supposed to be a nursing home in Sheffield. It was appalling and after a day & half she ended up in hospital again (not saying this is the fault of the home)

The standard of care was disgusting, they had no idea about her disability, she is severely disabled and needs 24 hour nursing careand cant do much for herself, but they didnt even know she was paralysed and cant even sit up on her own never mind anything else. She was left in bed all afternoon on her own with no-one coming to check on her, she couldnt even reach the buzzer to call for attention, which didnt even work!!! My niece arrived at teatime and her mum was distraught laying in soiled pad.

My niece couldnt even find any staff and had to go searching for them.

The following day my brother in law and a good friend of ours, who has worked as a senior carer herself for 40 years, visited my sister, only to find her lying in a pool of vomit and again soiled pad and in the same clothes she was wearing the day before when she arrived there. She also had trouble finding someone to assist. When the carer did come she had no clue what to do, she was trying to mop up the sick but my friend told her to get my sister stripped, washed and change her bedding which was all soiled.

Through the day my sister had family with her but there were no regular two hour toileting checks, the carers didnt know which bin bags to use for the soiled pads which is particularly shocking considering the infection risk.

My sister was vomiting on and off all day,the staff appeared not bother, said it was due to her moving!!! Eventually after my niece pushed, one of staff (nurse I assume?) came and checked her BP which was 201/135 and at this point she decided to call the GP

My sister was eventually blue lighted to hospital where she is now.

Our concern and worry is they may send her back to this carehome after discharge, which we absolutely do not want

I have emailed social service, my sisters consultant, CQC - does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing and is there anything we can do to stop her being sent back there please.

We are desperate to keep her or of there

[Shreds]

RosieEliza,

Massively distressing as your account is, both mine and others (including the senior partner of a law firm) have found many such places might better be described as “Dont” care homes.

I know of one relative of mine, years ago went to work at such a place, through an agency but had absolutely no medical or care experience whatsoever. She was so appalled and she only spent one night there and handed in her notice. Everything you describe and worse occurred on the one night shift she worked there. Sadly some of the staff who were so called qualified actually worked in an NHS mental hospital for the criminally insane and were working in the care home during their non working NHS shifts and obviously the kind of “care” required by those two different scenarios was very, very different.

Other staff are often poorly paid agency workers but the owners just rake in massive weekly fees from individuals, relatives or the state.

I could cite so many examples I have been told of, its a scandle and if the lawyer I know couldnt beat the system for his mother, I really dont know how to resolve such matters. Sorry to be so frank about this.

I would suggest that you arrange to visit other care homes especially when they are not expecting you and assess them yourself although they are very secretive and dont make you welcome, or just show you the best rooms. (One example was the show room was good but others not shown had fold up camp beds for residents. The care home owners didnt know I saw that).

An alternative might be for you to control matters and employ carers yourself but dont underestimate the strain on you doing this. It will be massive as will the paperwork.

Can the Stroke Assoc assist at all?

Sorry to be clutching at straws but you clearly need all the help you can get.

[RosieEliza in reply to Shreds]

Thank you for your reply

Social worker from the rehab centre she was in was also shocked at what we reported and will try to push to find alternative. The home was supposedly assessed in advance and deemed suitable to handle my sisters complex care needs which they obviously aren’t! We will not let my sister go back there at any cost

I’m so glad that our friend, who is a senior carer was there to witness and see issues from a professional point of view - she saw things that we wouldn’t know to question

[Dvorak]

I am very sorry to hear this experience. Can I ask who is funding your sister's care?

If it is NHS funded, they are responsible/can change care home based on clinical need. If you are selfunding, the CQC rate care homes so you can search their website for reports about care and management and shortlist from that time cqc.org.uk/care-services/fi... .

Also a website carehome.co.uk has reviews too. As someone else has said visit too to really see if it is suitable.

Hope this is useful

[RosieEliza in reply to Dvorak]

My sister went in there on the 28 day assessment funded by NHS and this is to decide if she will be awarded Social care funding of Continuous Healthcare funding

I have been in touch with a company who deal with these assessments on your behalf but it’s expensive

Wonder if anyone on here has used Beacon or Compass Continuing Healthcare to fight for the package?

[Dvorak in reply to RosieEliza]

I did my friend's assessment and we were successful once she moved out of rehab. Beacon are excellent source of guidance and I bought their booklet - it is a lot of work to prepare the documentation and the assessment meeting (during lockdown and on zoom) took several hours. The forms for annual review have just changed so I'd check with beacon.

[RosieEliza in reply to Dvorak]

Thank you

[Butterfly28]

Hello RosieEliza

I’m sorry to hear this shocking story and it’s so distressing and worrying.

This is a bit of a stab in the dark but presumably for the moment your sister is safe in hospital and her needs have been documented. She should have a nominated social worker - so could you ask for a family meeting. Make the request in writing - copy in whoever you wish. The purpose is to try to have a voice in the discharge process. So, list the reasons why this home is wholly unsuitable and why your sister should not go back there as her needs are 0% met by the sound of it. (Was it actually a care home but what is needed is a nursing home?) In any event the hospital has made an unsafe discharge.

Ask for alternatives but you must visit (just turn up). And as suggested do some research to get an idea of the nursing homes in the area.

This is exhausting so good luck.

[RosieEliza in reply to Butterfly28]

Yes she is in hospital and we have made them aware of what happened and stressed we cannot allow her to be sent back

It was the Rehab centre that sent her to this home. It’s supposed to be a nursing/care home but from what we saw there was one qualified nurse and basic carers ( not to be disrespectful to carers they do a tough job) but my sister has complex needs and it just didn’t seem as though they had a clue

I emailed social services, CQC, her consultant and the social worker from rehab place and I sent pictures and full breakdown of what was witnessed by family and friend so we do have evidence to show why we think it is unsafe for her to return there

Hopefully the social worker will find somewhere more suitable and the hospital said now it’s been raised as s concern with social services then they will not just discharge her

She is still very poorly in hospital at moment it at least we know she is being properly cared for

[Butterfly28]

It sounds as if you are being listened to. I hope your sister starts to feel better soon. Do let us know the outcome and good luck

[RosieEliza in reply to Butterfly28]

Will do - thank you

[Hidden]

I phoned Beacon and then they booked a free one hour chat over the phone when I was fighting for my husband’s CHC funding to be reinstated. There is a helpful booklet you can download if you go on their website.

[RosieEliza in reply to Hidden]

Thank you

[gr33nmind]

After my hypoxic brain injury, 29 years ago, I was placed in three equally disgusting group homes. Luckily I still was capable of writing, and sending complaints to health officials. I had the know it all to write the complaints, but not the understanding that letting them know I had sent them was a bad idea. I was evicted from all three for doing so. Homes expect family members to bitch. Basically they will just lie, and say they will improve. What they don't anticipate unexpected state or county inspections, and the fines the they will bring, The homes were fined thousands. Now honestly I don't know if conditions improved, but after I let the state know, the homes were probably on the state radar for many years.

[RosieEliza in reply to gr33nmind]

Thank you for your reply - I’m just so glad we took photos and have documented what happened

[philbou]

hi

You can raise this with the rehab place as an unsafe discharge

I know the sheffield pathway

But first and continuously raise this as a safeguarding issue with your appointed social worker if you get no joy ask for it to be escalated to a senior social worker

Stroke and tbi are horrible at the best of times without people being robbed of there dignity too

The staff at the home are the bottom of a very underfunded and stressed process they are put in position where they are unable to cop

Home managers and senior staff are the ones responsible

I hope you find a solution

[RosieEliza in reply to philbou]

Thanks. We have complained to everyone we can think of and are also logging it with the police (on advice of an independent nurse & carer) as she is a vunerable adult in the care of social services. Social worker now confirmed there will be aSection 42 enquiry and they will definitely not be sending my sister back to that care (or in reality non-care) home.

When she is ready for discharge they will discuss with family what happens next. At the moment she is still poorly in hospital, improved a little but doc said she still not out of the woods yet. Just pray she can fight this.

thanks to all of you who replied - it means a lot when you are in a nightmare like this and you hear from others who have experienced same or similar.