If care homes are charging £1k+ per week and carers are paid minimum wage, where is the money going?

Pennylane

tooldle said:

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Maybe, but equally there are a lot of assumptions in the post. Brand new Range Rover, bought from excessive profits, or provided on lease? Equally a gift from a husband, family inheritance etc etc. Lots of possible explanations.
Sandwiches for tea are pretty common, as most places I've visited have the main meal at lunchtime. 
Food from the Cash and Carry would be quite normal (I would think), unless a wholesaler delivers directly. From what the poster said, it seems a smallish facility with a low number of residents.
Food portions are small. Again, quite normal. Little and often is often the mantra with food available at all times to anyone who is hungry.

It may indeed be the case that this particular home was scrimping whilst taking 'huge' profits but, if that is your belief, why place your relative there in the first place. These things would surely have been obvious when checking the place out in the first instance.

Your last sentence shows that you have little experience of visiting potential care homes. As I said in my other post I visited 14 homes and not one of them showed me a sample meal as none of them want visitors at mealtimes.

Most of the information you get is from brochures where, obviously, everything look great!  As I got more used to the way these places work I got quite good at asking the right questions. 

If you think you can just remove your parent from a care home and immediately get them into another one then you are very much mistaken. 

When the cook left I often spoke to her as she lives locally and she told me that she was concerned that people were not being provided with nutritious or healthy food and had often asked the owner if she could buy fresh local produce from a farm stall just around the corner but the owner said no.  

At Mum’s second home everything including soups were homemade and much healthier for frail elderly people.  i regularly stayed and had lunch with her as it was so good.  The cooks always made plenty so if residents were still hungry they could have more and if they weren’t hungry or were asleep at mealtimes there was always food in the kitchen which staff would provide them with in between regular mealtimes, like soup, jacket potato with a filling, crumpets, yoghourts, salad etc.  

tooldle

Pennylane said:

tooldle said:

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Maybe, but equally there are a lot of assumptions in the post. Brand new Range Rover, bought from excessive profits, or provided on lease? Equally a gift from a husband, family inheritance etc etc. Lots of possible explanations.
Sandwiches for tea are pretty common, as most places I've visited have the main meal at lunchtime. 
Food from the Cash and Carry would be quite normal (I would think), unless a wholesaler delivers directly. From what the poster said, it seems a smallish facility with a low number of residents.
Food portions are small. Again, quite normal. Little and often is often the mantra with food available at all times to anyone who is hungry.

It may indeed be the case that this particular home was scrimping whilst taking 'huge' profits but, if that is your belief, why place your relative there in the first place. These things would surely have been obvious when checking the place out in the first instance.

Your last sentence shows that you have little experience of visiting potential care homes. As I said in my other post I visited 14 homes and not one of them showed me a sample meal as none of them want visitors at mealtimes.

Most of the information you get is from brochures where, obviously, everything look great!  As I got more used to the way these places work I got quite good at asking the right questions. 

If you think you can just remove your parent from a care home and immediately get them into another one then you are very much mistaken. 

When the cook left I often spoke to her as she lives locally and she told me that she was concerned that people were not being provided with nutritious or healthy food and had often asked the owner if she could buy fresh local produce from a farm stall just around the corner but the owner said no.  

At Mum’s second home everything including soups were homemade and much healthier for frail elderly people.  i regularly stayed and had lunch with her as it was so good.  The cooks always made plenty so if residents were still hungry they could have more and if they weren’t hungry or were asleep at mealtimes there was always food in the kitchen which staff would provide them with in between regular mealtimes, like soup, jacket potato with a filling, crumpets, yoghourts, salad etc.  

On the contrary, my mum is in a care home, and like you i have moved her once. The first home being 200 miles from where i live, and the current home local to me. To find the right place for mum i visited many care settings.

Pennylane

tooldle said:

Pennylane said:

tooldle said:

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Maybe, but equally there are a lot of assumptions in the post. Brand new Range Rover, bought from excessive profits, or provided on lease? Equally a gift from a husband, family inheritance etc etc. Lots of possible explanations.
Sandwiches for tea are pretty common, as most places I've visited have the main meal at lunchtime. 
Food from the Cash and Carry would be quite normal (I would think), unless a wholesaler delivers directly. From what the poster said, it seems a smallish facility with a low number of residents.
Food portions are small. Again, quite normal. Little and often is often the mantra with food available at all times to anyone who is hungry.

It may indeed be the case that this particular home was scrimping whilst taking 'huge' profits but, if that is your belief, why place your relative there in the first place. These things would surely have been obvious when checking the place out in the first instance.

Your last sentence shows that you have little experience of visiting potential care homes. As I said in my other post I visited 14 homes and not one of them showed me a sample meal as none of them want visitors at mealtimes.

Most of the information you get is from brochures where, obviously, everything look great!  As I got more used to the way these places work I got quite good at asking the right questions. 

If you think you can just remove your parent from a care home and immediately get them into another one then you are very much mistaken. 

When the cook left I often spoke to her as she lives locally and she told me that she was concerned that people were not being provided with nutritious or healthy food and had often asked the owner if she could buy fresh local produce from a farm stall just around the corner but the owner said no.  

At Mum’s second home everything including soups were homemade and much healthier for frail elderly people.  i regularly stayed and had lunch with her as it was so good.  The cooks always made plenty so if residents were still hungry they could have more and if they weren’t hungry or were asleep at mealtimes there was always food in the kitchen which staff would provide them with in between regular mealtimes, like soup, jacket potato with a filling, crumpets, yoghourts, salad etc.  

On the contrary, my mum is in a care home, and like you i have moved her once. The first home being 200 miles from where i live, and the current home local to me. To find the right place for mum i visited many care settings.

Well then Tooldle I might well ask you why you originally put your Mum in a home 200 miles away.    That would seem most odd to some people because you could not visit as frequently and you could not be on hand if there were any problems or things that needed sorting out.  

I’m not having a go at you because both of us clearly want the best for our Mums and we go about it in different ways.

My priorities were:- It had to be close enough so I could visit every other day and take Mum out. It had to have kind and caring staff who were well trained,  it had to be clean and light and airy and residents had to be treated as individuals.  At the first home I assumed residents were allowed to spend their day how they liked but it soon became evident that they wanted them all in the lounge watching TV together as they were easier to monitor.  My Mum has never been a TV person and said she would like to sit in her own room and knit or read and they told her she was “unsociable”.  

Anyway I hope your Mum is doing OK now. 

elsien

Maybe that is what her mother wanted? Nowadays when children can move hundreds of miles away, the person may prefer to stay somewhere familiar where they have friends who can visit, rather than upsticks elsewhere?
As you say, there isn't a one size fits all.

FWIW my grandmother was in a bad care home which I reported to CQC and was always on their back about various issues. She refused point blank to move elsewhere for a number of reasons and although there was an LPA in place she still had most of her marbles (enough to make what I considered to be a very unwise decision) so it was ultimately her decision to make. I didn't agree, and I kept telling her that, but dragging a capacitous person out kicking and screaming isn't really on the cards. 

tooldle

Pennylane said:

tooldle said:

Pennylane said:

tooldle said:

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Maybe, but equally there are a lot of assumptions in the post. Brand new Range Rover, bought from excessive profits, or provided on lease? Equally a gift from a husband, family inheritance etc etc. Lots of possible explanations.
Sandwiches for tea are pretty common, as most places I've visited have the main meal at lunchtime. 
Food from the Cash and Carry would be quite normal (I would think), unless a wholesaler delivers directly. From what the poster said, it seems a smallish facility with a low number of residents.
Food portions are small. Again, quite normal. Little and often is often the mantra with food available at all times to anyone who is hungry.

It may indeed be the case that this particular home was scrimping whilst taking 'huge' profits but, if that is your belief, why place your relative there in the first place. These things would surely have been obvious when checking the place out in the first instance.

Your last sentence shows that you have little experience of visiting potential care homes. As I said in my other post I visited 14 homes and not one of them showed me a sample meal as none of them want visitors at mealtimes.

Most of the information you get is from brochures where, obviously, everything look great!  As I got more used to the way these places work I got quite good at asking the right questions. 

If you think you can just remove your parent from a care home and immediately get them into another one then you are very much mistaken. 

When the cook left I often spoke to her as she lives locally and she told me that she was concerned that people were not being provided with nutritious or healthy food and had often asked the owner if she could buy fresh local produce from a farm stall just around the corner but the owner said no.  

At Mum’s second home everything including soups were homemade and much healthier for frail elderly people.  i regularly stayed and had lunch with her as it was so good.  The cooks always made plenty so if residents were still hungry they could have more and if they weren’t hungry or were asleep at mealtimes there was always food in the kitchen which staff would provide them with in between regular mealtimes, like soup, jacket potato with a filling, crumpets, yoghourts, salad etc.  

On the contrary, my mum is in a care home, and like you i have moved her once. The first home being 200 miles from where i live, and the current home local to me. To find the right place for mum i visited many care settings.

Well then Tooldle I might well ask you why you originally put your Mum in a home 200 miles away.    That would seem most odd to some people because you could not visit as frequently and you could not be on hand if there were any problems or things that needed sorting out.  

I’m not having a go at you because both of us clearly want the best for our Mums and we go about it in different ways.

My priorities were:- It had to be close enough so I could visit every other day and take Mum out. It had to have kind and caring staff who were well trained,  it had to be clean and light and airy and residents had to be treated as individuals.  At the first home I assumed residents were allowed to spend their day how they liked but it soon became evident that they wanted them all in the lounge watching TV together as they were easier to monitor.  My Mum has never been a TV person and said she would like to sit in her own room and knit or read and they told her she was “unsociable”.  

Anyway I hope your Mum is doing OK now. 

It’s really simple. My dad died very suddenly. He was diagnosed with an incurable cancer a few weeks previously. I was 43 at the time. Yes, it was horrendous trying to juggling sorting arrangements for Dad, dealing with his will, trying to find care for mum (dementia) trying to pay for it all, keeping my own professional commitments going and looking after my own family. Every weekend i spent 10 hours on the train, an hour or two with mum and my sibling, a few more hours sorting their house out before getting back to my own home to rinse and repeat.
My parents lived in Sussex and I live in South Wales. Mum wanted to stay near my sibling, who i turn had already made plans to move away.
As horrible as all that was, all four of my grandparents ended their lives in care settings of one sort or another, which gave me a good deal of experience to work with.
For dad’s dad, two care homes, for his mum, three care homes and a nursing home. For mum’s dad, one mental health facility and a care home, for her mum one care home. Gran died aged 102, some 4 months after the death of my father and mum’s admission to care at the age of 76. 
So, for my own sanity and to ensure mum did receive visits (sibling had already bailed), i moved her to South Wales as soon as it was practicable to do so. 
I started viewing potential homes. 
In addition i leveraged my networks and sought recommendations from older colleagues who had experienced similar, colleagues in the NHS and similar roles.  Friends of my own age weren’t much help to be frank.
My priorities for mum were - to be within easy walking distance of my work and home or on a easy bus route (to manage emergencies) and allow me to call in on my way home from work.  To be close to coffee shops etc for a change of scene. To be quiet with no road noise (a real bug bear) for mum. To be willing to deal with regular medical apts (many homes will cancel hospital apts at short notice and i can’t always be available (full time professional role)). To have residents who were willing and able to hold conversation. To be clean with no smell. To be willing to let visitors stay for meals (anticipated sibling visit). To offer a variety of options at each meal. To have trained staff and registrations to make a further move unlikely. To be well maintained and most importantly to be her home and not just a place in which she is temporarIly resident.
she is now 84 and a shadow of her former self. I am still full time employed and visit most weeks. I’ve a garden visit booked for this afternoon. Whilst the pandemic has meant the home has been closed to visitors for long periods, it has also reduced my work related travel and by working from home, i can walk over to mum's within 5 mins. She lives in a great place and it is truly her home. She is loved there, and it shows. Well worth every penny paid, and over the years the residents and staff have become a kind of extended family to me.

Pennylane

tooldle said:

Pennylane said:

tooldle said:

Pennylane said:

tooldle said:

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Maybe, but equally there are a lot of assumptions in the post. Brand new Range Rover, bought from excessive profits, or provided on lease? Equally a gift from a husband, family inheritance etc etc. Lots of possible explanations.
Sandwiches for tea are pretty common, as most places I've visited have the main meal at lunchtime. 
Food from the Cash and Carry would be quite normal (I would think), unless a wholesaler delivers directly. From what the poster said, it seems a smallish facility with a low number of residents.
Food portions are small. Again, quite normal. Little and often is often the mantra with food available at all times to anyone who is hungry.

It may indeed be the case that this particular home was scrimping whilst taking 'huge' profits but, if that is your belief, why place your relative there in the first place. These things would surely have been obvious when checking the place out in the first instance.

Your last sentence shows that you have little experience of visiting potential care homes. As I said in my other post I visited 14 homes and not one of them showed me a sample meal as none of them want visitors at mealtimes.

Most of the information you get is from brochures where, obviously, everything look great!  As I got more used to the way these places work I got quite good at asking the right questions. 

If you think you can just remove your parent from a care home and immediately get them into another one then you are very much mistaken. 

When the cook left I often spoke to her as she lives locally and she told me that she was concerned that people were not being provided with nutritious or healthy food and had often asked the owner if she could buy fresh local produce from a farm stall just around the corner but the owner said no.  

At Mum’s second home everything including soups were homemade and much healthier for frail elderly people.  i regularly stayed and had lunch with her as it was so good.  The cooks always made plenty so if residents were still hungry they could have more and if they weren’t hungry or were asleep at mealtimes there was always food in the kitchen which staff would provide them with in between regular mealtimes, like soup, jacket potato with a filling, crumpets, yoghourts, salad etc.  

On the contrary, my mum is in a care home, and like you i have moved her once. The first home being 200 miles from where i live, and the current home local to me. To find the right place for mum i visited many care settings.

Well then Tooldle I might well ask you why you originally put your Mum in a home 200 miles away.    That would seem most odd to some people because you could not visit as frequently and you could not be on hand if there were any problems or things that needed sorting out.  

I’m not having a go at you because both of us clearly want the best for our Mums and we go about it in different ways.

My priorities were:- It had to be close enough so I could visit every other day and take Mum out. It had to have kind and caring staff who were well trained,  it had to be clean and light and airy and residents had to be treated as individuals.  At the first home I assumed residents were allowed to spend their day how they liked but it soon became evident that they wanted them all in the lounge watching TV together as they were easier to monitor.  My Mum has never been a TV person and said she would like to sit in her own room and knit or read and they told her she was “unsociable”.  

Anyway I hope your Mum is doing OK now. 

It’s really simple. My dad died very suddenly. He was diagnosed with an incurable cancer a few weeks previously. I was 43 at the time. Yes, it was horrendous trying to juggling sorting arrangements for Dad, dealing with his will, trying to find care for mum (dementia) trying to pay for it all, keeping my own professional commitments going and looking after my own family. Every weekend i spent 10 hours on the train, an hour or two with mum and my sibling, a few more hours sorting their house out before getting back to my own home to rinse and repeat.
My parents lived in Sussex and I live in South Wales. Mum wanted to stay near my sibling, who i turn had already made plans to move away.
As horrible as all that was, all four of my grandparents ended their lives in care settings of one sort or another, which gave me a good deal of experience to work with.
For dad’s dad, two care homes, for his mum, three care homes and a nursing home. For mum’s dad, one mental health facility and a care home, for her mum one care home. Gran died aged 102, some 4 months after the death of my father and mum’s admission to care at the age of 76. 
So, for my own sanity and to ensure mum did receive visits (sibling had already bailed), i moved her to South Wales as soon as it was practicable to do so. 
I started viewing potential homes. 
In addition i leveraged my networks and sought recommendations from older colleagues who had experienced similar, colleagues in the NHS and similar roles.  Friends of my own age weren’t much help to be frank.
My priorities for mum were - to be within easy walking distance of my work and home or on a easy bus route (to manage emergencies) and allow me to call in on my way home from work.  To be close to coffee shops etc for a change of scene. To be quiet with no road noise (a real bug bear) for mum. To be willing to deal with regular medical apts (many homes will cancel hospital apts at short notice and i can’t always be available (full time professional role)). To have residents who were willing and able to hold conversation. To be clean with no smell. To be willing to let visitors stay for meals (anticipated sibling visit). To offer a variety of options at each meal. To have trained staff and registrations to make a further move unlikely. To be well maintained and most importantly to be her home and not just a place in which she is temporarIly resident.
she is now 84 and a shadow of her former self. I am still full time employed and visit most weeks. I’ve a garden visit booked for this afternoon. Whilst the pandemic has meant the home has been closed to visitors for long periods, it has also reduced my work related travel and by working from home, i can walk over to mum's within 5 mins. She lives in a great place and it is truly her home. She is loved there, and it shows. Well worth every penny paid, and over the years the residents and staff have become a kind of extended family to me.

So pleased your Mum is happy and well cared for.  My Mum passed away last Christmas and all the staff were fantastic. They told me that Mum would never be on her own when she approached the end of life and whenever I visited (the only visitor allowed in the building) there was someone with her, reading poems, playing gentle music that she loved, holding her hand or stroking her hair. it was very humbling. She had already completed an end of life care plan with them so her wishes were carried out. She specified no hospital, to pass away at the home  and have me with her and to have district nurses and GP if needed. She wanted to wear her favourite perfume and be tucked up with her favourite crochet throws.  

The home arranged for her to have her knitted teddies and rosary beads with her when she was taken to the funeral home and they wrapped her in a big throw I made her in her favourite colours. They were so kind and when I bump into care staff they tell me they still miss her as she was there over 3 years and they all loved her.  They sent me cards and a beautiful orchid and stayed in contact for ages and told me to pop in or ring if I ever needed them.  Couldn’t ask for more and, like your Mum, although she paid a lot, she could not have been better cared for.