Complaint about care home

mills112

Not sure if anyone has had experience of having to deal with missing items in a care home?

My brother lives in a care home for people with mental health issues and within the last couple of months a lot of stuff have gone missing. Some of the stuff my brother says he threw out but he is very confused with so much medication that it is not always reliable information from him.

Mainly clothes, especially new ones that I buy for him. But things like tech, money (which is now no longer kept in his room), debit card, Freedom Pass.

I have raised the issue with the care home manager but he has brushed it aside that my brother has thrown things out, which I can't believe would have gone unnoticed by staff.

What is the best way that people have approached this as I don't want to upset the care home and hence cause any repercussions for my brother.

jaybeetoo

Have you put his name in all of his clothes?

tetrarch

It is really difficult to actually point the finger at any guilty partner. When my late MIL was in a care home the amount of "theft" between the various (mostly) dementia sufferers was rife.

This is not malice, just forgetfullness and magpie-ing that seems to be a symptom of dementia sufferers

Name tagging is the best idea. Not quite sure what you'd do about a freedom pass…

Regards

Tet

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81987488#Comment_81987488

on his shoes but not on his clothes. May be I should start doing that. It is a terrible predicament as you are not in a safe environment where your possessions can be protected as there are too many people about and it is difficult to accuse people. my brother says it is staff that is stealing his stuff, which makes it even more difficult to challenge.

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81987891#Comment_81987891

On the back of not naming cloths. Who washes them?

If it is done internally, then it is very easy for cloths to go astray.

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81987907#Comment_81987907

the cleaner washes them and my brother says that she steals them as she never gives them back. the care manager says that the cleaner has been working there for the last 10 years and my brother's clothes did not go missing before.

Spendless

I had a Grandmother in a care home for 8 years and my FIL has been in for over 2 years. In both cases if clothes werent labelled you stood very little chance of getting them returned. My grandmother with dementia wouldnt recognise that she was wearing someone else's clothes, she didnt remember her own if it was a new item. It's quite possible your brother's clothes are being 'lost' to other patients this way.

gm0

Many residents in care homes with failing capabilities. Come up with the idea that things that have "vanished" (from view) have been stolen. And come up with elaborate plots by a nemesis fellow resident or blame staff. And it is i am afraid just something that happens. As in they believe that is what is happening. Most of the time the thing is mislaid in drawers among other possessions. And not stolen at all. And nobody is doing the things they are paranoid (mildly not the full enchilada) about. Infections chronic or acute tend to make this behaviour by care home residents worse as it lowers their resilience and mental health further.

Care home staff are familiar with this pattern. Relatives are - not (to start with)

Yes there are ALSO thieves at the margins. Other residents, their families, even staff sometimes. It happens as well and is thankfully on the rare side

There is no way to guard empty resident rooms when they are in the lounge and other staff, temps, relatives and residents are wandering freely. It's an unreasonable expectation that the carers - who are stretched to provide care and attention across the ratios needed. Will somehow make this happen as well. Not going to happen. It's not prison. Doors are not slammed shut and locked up.

Expect to be humoured but basically ignored with a shrug.

What would in their shoes could you do while preserving something of a residential atmosphere (which is patchy as it is).

Savvy_Sue

In m-i-l's care home, we gave them a list of all the clothes she went in with, and they took responsibility for naming them all. If we buy something new, we take it to the office to be named, and they add it to 'the list'. They use iron-in labels which don't come off!

it's not fool-proof: we've found her in 'the wrong trousers' - and she knew they weren't hers, but they'd landed in her room. And we've lost a pair we know we bought last year.

She wasn't wearing her rings and watch when she went in, but has recently started doing so. They have a photo on file, and a note that she has these items.

But she know what's hers, and what is not, and she wouldn't throw anything away. Whereas the OP's brother might do so, and not remember what he's done.

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81987970#Comment_81987970

Given that care homes do not wash the cloths per room, they all go in together, with no name it is down to staff memory on who is who's.

My mother used to have cloths go missing & gain others, while in care home. Even when name in them, as they fade. They also had a room where cloths who they could not find who owned them, & you could go in & look. Was also used as a store room for spare cloths that were left to them, as we did with my mothers when she passed.

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81987974#Comment_81987974

doesn't explain about shoes and other items though.