Social Care Reviews. Issue with new carers not wanting to perform tasks in Care Plan

Bhavee

I have a disabled sister with a Spinal Cord Injury.  She is on Direct Payments and the Council pay towards her care and my sister contributes towards her care on a weekly basis.  We were with a Care Agency for 13 years and recently changed to a new agency.  We are having issues with the carers not wanting to perform certain tasks detailed in her Care Plan.  The Agency has written to the Social Worker to have my sister's package reviewed saying there is too much cleaning in the package.  Are they allowed to do this?  The carers are reluctant to clean the areas that they use for my sister's care needs i.e. shower, toilet, kitchen area etc.  She has also been allocated an extra carer to take her shopping, the care agency have said to the Social Worker that this can be accommodated through her existing package without the need of allocating extra hours.  Again, are they allowed to do this?  My sister's package was discussed with them prior to them taking on the package.  They agreed to everything and now this has happened.  Any advice on how to deal with this matter at review level would be appreciated.

Tori_Scope

Welcome to the community @Bhavee

This isn't something I know a lot about, so I've marked your question as unanswered for now. Hopefully a member with some personal experience of this will find your post and be able to offer some advice.

In the meantime, I found this page on Mencap's website about challenging decisions on social care, including a factsheet on reviews and new assessments. Perhaps you could take a look through that information and see whether any of it helps you to understand where you stand, and what your next steps could be?

newborn

It seems likely that the agency you had for 13 years was undercut by a new agency quoting a cut price to the council for the care.  If they got the contract that way they need to find ways to cut corners and do less.

 Unfortunately, the endless calls for giving carers more money will have exactly the same results.  It's fine to virtue signal and certainly if anyone should be paid, say, fifteen pounds an hour, then why not care workers?  But nobody seems to comprehend that thirty pounds will then buy two hours of care at fifteen pounds, not three hours at ten pounds. 

Bhavee

Thanks Tori. I will take a look at the links.

Tori_Scope

Do you have any updates @Bhavee? How have you and your sister been getting on? 

Lisatho11987777

I was a carer for 30 years and at supervisor level if cleaning is becoming more than the care then carers can refuse to do the jobs carers only have to clean shower or bath after use and mop  wash dishes and make sure kitchen is tidy 

If there is alot  of cleaning then the cleaning should be done on a separate cleaning call  the shopping could be done before arriving at the personal care call unless there is time during that call to pick up shopping  or come to an argument where shopping can be done on line and deliverd 

What you have to bear in mind is there is a lack of carers and social services are cutting back on packages so you  need to be careful how you deal with the situation  hope this is of some help

neave123

Working with individuals with complex care needs as a carer and care coordinator and an individual with a spinal injury have every entitlement to ask you to do a cleaning task. As long as it is safe to do so. You are potentially the individuals working body and should support them to look after their homes. Your sister is paying into her care so why should she not have a choice in how the time is used?

Unfortunately the existing hours for shopping could be removed if found that the time allocated is 'enough' for the task. 

I hope I have helped. 

Thanks for reading