home Help and jobs for the girls

peter_the_piper

Now that my mother has been taken into hospital it would seem like a good time to complain about the quality of cleaning by the local home help firm.A simple thing you would think--wrong.
Phone the girl in reception, ask to speak to a superviser.Will ring back.
Phone call from Social services to say complaint passed to them, they will speak to the social services dept. at the hospital. They will assign a social worker to look into it and ring me back to make an appointment.
She will then see the problem and notify the cleaning firm.She rang me on the wrong number, by the time a message was sent to me(2 mins) and I returned the call-she had gone out. Still waiting for her call.
Why do they make things so difficult?No wonder my mother gave up.

Jen_Jen_5

I could be wrong here and you may want to ask the question on the benefits board as there have been some changes over the past year about direct payments of money for certian services/needs. Can you get your mums social services needs payed direct to her and then pay a decent cleaning firm direct - cut out the middle man so to speak?

peter_the_piper

She does get the money direct and we do pay a 'private' company from the ones which I think were recommended by S.S. This is what makes it so irritating- as well as the fact that S.S still have not got back to me.

Paul1_2

Hi Peter,

If the money paid is from the Direct Payment Scheme, the whole point of this is to give the service user control and choice. You can choose to employ a company directly and if they are not performing and their complaints system has not improved the service, you simply move to someone who will give you a good service.

The better option with Direct Payments is to employ your own staff, this gives a far more personalised service.

From your post it sounds more like your mum was purchasing a service privately probably using Attendance Allowance. Anyone receiving Direct Payments would already have a Social Worker involved and usually a support service as well.

Most departments will provide a list of their contracted providers (companies they use), but do not usually make recommendations. If there is a problem on a private contract then the companies complaints procedure is the main way forward.

I would agree that your contact with the Department concerned is not good enough and would advise you to use their formal complaints procedure. This has various stages and can be quite effective.

Paul1