How much to pay a live in carer

sh1981

PasturesNew wrote: »

Why not convince her to move into a care home where she'll have not only 24/7 "watching over" but also wall to wall friends to sit and stare out of the window with, great regular meals, some entertainment laid on, no worries about maintenance and stuff......

A full-time live-in carer can't give all of that, especially the social side of things....

yeah especially afer that panorama show where they showed how they treated people in care homes... i wouldnt go near those places.

PasturesNew

sh1981 wrote: »

yeah especially afer that panorama show where they showed how they treated people in care homes... i wouldnt go near those places.

While they exist, that's not how they all are.

rose28454

I have spent overnight thinking about your replies and just found a voicemail on my phone from Adult Social Care which is obviously a reply to my questions yesterday about funding.
My brother initially interviewed these ladies and I know the other one brought references ( because I saw them) but not sure about this one. I am due to speak to her today about next weekend so will ask her about NI status etc. I know this will cause trouble with brother and younger sister as they think its me not wanting to give up looking after Mum. What it actually is is concern for my Mum that we are making the wrong move here. After all she has 4 times a day care ( from a lovely agency and she is quite fond of some of the ladies and the office ladies are very good too) and a cleaner twice a week ( employed by me and she is a lady I have known for 20 years and she is great) and a gardener my older sister pays for ( Dad was a great gardener and Mum frets if it's not tidy). I go in every day but not for so long now when I am working.
The main worry is when I go away working for my sister on catering jobs so maybe what we need is someone we can call on for those times. So confused now

Mojisola

Sorry to hear your siblings are still making life difficult for you.

Even if someone brings references, they don't mean anything more than the paper they're on unless you follow them up - not just contacting the people who supposedly wrote them but making sure they are real people and not mates of the interviewee.

elsien

If you're looking at the live in care route, you also need to consider back up plans for when the carer is ill, on holiday/ wants to have longer off to go on holiday/ resigns at short notice/ doesn't turn up. This generally involves using agency to cover at short notice and accepting whoever they have available. Agency cover is expensive and you then need to spending more time interviewing new staff. Even if you do a week on and a week off which is the usual arrangement you still need a back up for unplanned contingencies.
My friend used to arrange live in carers for a woman with ms and when it went well it was fine. However the person being cared for did not suffer fools gladly and carers didn't tend to stay around. It's more difficult to keep a decent pool of staff than your brother seems to appreciate. Is he prepared to be the one on the end of the phone if your mum is ever left without care for any reason, because someone needs to be. If he thinks it's such a great idea, tell him he can sort out any problems that do arise.

You could try looking at companies like penderels, who help with managing care and direct payments. It can still be a lot of work though, keeping on top of payments etc.

margaretclare

rose28454 wrote: »

Mum has been having 4 visits a day ( 4th visit only fell in a week ago when she came out of hospital). Up to now i was filling in with shopping, doctors appts, finances, meal planning and paperwork. I was getting carer's allowance and Mum gave me £100.00. Cause I now have a part time job my brother thought she needed someone to live in ( and also because she fell) as he thinks she should not be alone at night. He advertised and we interviewed 2 ladies this week. He prefers one but Mum and my sis and I prefer the other. So he has thrown a strop and handed it over to us. I am well aware that she is probably better sticking with what she has ( she also has a cleaner 2 times a week) and my sis and I would deal with appts etc. But we want to give it a try as sis and i are away for 3 days next weekend so seems a good opportunity to test someone out. Older sis ( who lives abroad ) comes home every month or so and stays and is home for most of June. she thinks we can get someone to live in , do a few things and not get paid as getting free accomadation and continue with the 4 care visits too. She has not got a clue.
As to her going into a home she does not want that but i know we are heading that way.
I think we should just get someone to come a few hours a week as Mum wont be giving me any money from her Attendance Allowance so she can use that money for that.
I take on board what you are saying about more than one carer as it is obvious my brother has not thought this through. he just thinks we can stop her falling if someone lives in and it will be company as she is a bit lonely.
Having said that she sees me or my sis at least once a day but neither of my 2 brothers bothers to visit.

OMG. As someone who used to do this type of thing 20 years ago can I stick my fourpence in.

You cannot get someone in and not pay them. You can't! So the person will be getting 'free accommodation' - big deal. She - I assume it will be she - will also have her own home to maintain and all the costs that involves. OK, less heating/water etc, but still, council tax, insurances etc, garden to maintain as your own home must not look unattended or it's a magnet for all the ne'er-do-wells that happen to be passing.

Whoever does this type of work cannot do it 24/7. She must have time off and must be allowed to sleep. It drives you crazy otherwise. It used to be 2 hours off in the afternoon and, if you were working night shifts as well someone must relieve you so that you can sleep. If Mum decides to get up in the night and falls over, the fact that she has a care assistant under the same roof won't prevent it. People do all kinds of irrational things and no one can prevent them. The most you can do is call the ambulance service. Health and safety will not allow you to pick up someone off the floor - danger to her, and to you (damage to your back).

I could go on. People have funny ideas about a live-in servant who will do everything, cooking, washing, caring, shopping, for a pittance and be grateful. I hated it. Thank God I don't have to do it now.

I did it through a company called ConsultUs. They may be still in business, I don't know.

rose28454

margaretclare wrote: »

OMG. As someone who used to do this type of thing 20 years ago can I stick my fourpence in.

You cannot get someone in and not pay them. You can't! So the person will be getting 'free accommodation' - big deal. She - I assume it will be she - will also have her own home to maintain and all the costs that involves. OK, less heating/water etc, but still, council tax, insurances etc, garden to maintain as your own home must not look unattended or it's a magnet for all the ne'er-do-wells that happen to be passing.

Whoever does this type of work cannot do it 24/7. She must have time off and must be allowed to sleep. It drives you crazy otherwise. It used to be 2 hours off in the afternoon and, if you were working night shifts as well someone must relieve you so that you can sleep. If Mum decides to get up in the night and falls over, the fact that she has a care assistant under the same roof won't prevent it. People do all kinds of irrational things and no one can prevent them. The most you can do is call the ambulance service. Health and safety will not allow you to pick up someone off the floor - danger to her, and to you (damage to your back).

I could go on. People have funny ideas about a live-in servant who will do everything, cooking, washing, caring, shopping, for a pittance and be grateful. I hated it. Thank God I don't have to do it now.

I did it through a company called ConsultUs. They may be still in business, I don't know.

Thanks for your input. The lady we have in mind is South African and looked after her parents and now they have died she has come to UK to be near her sister. She is living with her at present and she lives about 15 miles away. Even though my Mum has a lifeline pendant and all the carers I mentioned my brother thinks a live in carer will prevent her falling. His last bright idea was for Mum and Dad's garage to be converted into a flat for someone to live in to help them with the £60k mortgage he canoodled them into ( another saga - Dad retired at 70 and brother persuaded him to be a director of his business and when it went wrong Dad got a neverending mortgage to prop it up as brother could not borrow any more-Mum still paying mortgage and brother lives in a £800k house). He also thinks we should all subsidise this carers wages out of our own pockets ( my 2 sisters and other brother plus him paid money towards the mortgage for some years - I did not as I could not afford and did not see why I should).


Its a bit of a nightmare. There was another lady who applied but because she knows the family (her stepfather is the brother of my brother's wife's sister's husband) he excluded her. But on the plus side at least we know her but she is not looking for live in but that might work anyway. I am signing off till later now but am going to have a chat with Mum this morning about what she wants and thinks.

margaretclare

Please try to emphasise to your brother that a live-in carer WILL NOT and CANNOT prevent your Mum falling. Picture this: carer is in the kitchen preparing food, Mum is in the other room within call but she decides to get up out of her chair to reach for something and she slips on the carpet and bangs her head on a piece of furniture. Or she has a bad dream in the night, becomes confused, tries to get up and trips on her nightie or her slippers. Anything can happen.

Last week when my husband was in hospital there was a man in the same ward who'd fallen in his home. He already has carers coming in, was using a zimmer frame but had slipped on the carpet and broken both his legs. You would think it was impossible for him to fall - he doesn't even have to get out of his chair except when his carers come, but he had got up and even the zimmer frame hadn't prevented him falling.

heartbreak_star

I'd have kicked off at my brother now if I were you.

I agree totally with PasturesNew...my dad had an excellent care home, you just have to choose very carefully.

I suspect that your brother may bully the live-in assistant the way he bullies you, and that could lead to another mess entirely. Please listen to what margaretclare is saying, she is absolutely right!

HBS x

troubleinparadise

A friend of mine used an agency to supply 24/7 care for her mother in her own home. The mum was self-funding, but did receive some payments (attendance allowance etc).

The agency then had the responsibility for the vetting, NI and insurance, plus provided back-up cover for sickness etc (although that wasn't always within a couple of hours - it could take a couple of days to sort). The carer was changed approximately every 6 months.

The carer still needed time off, so additional local cover was sorted for that.

So the house still needed to be maintained, a car provided, and food for the carer as well as mum, along with the usual utilities.

It didn't always run smoothly - illness, carer resigning, incompatibility with the mum - so it certainly still needed ongoing input and overseeing and at times very short notice cover if the carer went abruptly for whatever of the above reasons.

The costs in total were not dissimilar to that of residential care (approximately £2500+ per month) , but worked very well with this person's particular problems - dementia (non-aggressive) and physically able.

"Getting someone to live in" is not the simple solution it might sound, as you are already finding - and I think you rightly have your eyes wide open to the pitfalls. The above at least involved the legal etc issues being the responsibility of an agency (not that that is always without issue) rather than immediate family who might not be savvy with employment law etc and don't want the hassle that might involve. Don't underestimate those issues.

I suspect your biggest problem is your brother!

Good luck