Need your advice please, on minutes allocated to bathing, admin etc in a Care & Support Plan

221b

Hi everyone

I'm supporting an old friend with the Care & Support Plan process.  He gets a direct payment from his council atm.

He has a significant set of diagnosed complex needs, and we're just now waiting for an additional ASC diagnostic assessment for him.

Due to his mix of conditions, he needs most things doing at a slower pace - with him, not for him, so we now try to always be led by his pace - we thought we were helping early on when we went in all guns blazing with efficiency, and totally overwhelmed him, leading to a bit of a meltdown, which was... not a good day. 

His social worker still underestimates how long it takes him to do things, because she never sees that kind of fallout. Myself and a couple of his support workers have mentioned this to her twice, but she doesn't seem to 'get it' so we're a bit stumped. She's already said she doesn't really know anything about his conditions, but that his Care & Support is already quite high/generous.

I hunted online to see if there's some social worker time estimation matrix that they work from - eg 'a bath takes 45 minutes' or whatever - does such a thing even exist?!

If not, I'm not sure what she is basing his minutes allocation for each activity on, as it's currently not enough.  Before we try and tackle her about it (again) I'd like your advice and if it exists, to be directed towards any estimating template that social workers work from.

It all seems to be a bit of a convenient mystery just now! And we're all a bit in the dark.

Cheers,

Louis

221b

Bumping this.

Anyone?!

Thanks, Louis

poppy123456

There's no standard timescale that should be given for this, it will totally depend on each individual person and their needs. When i worked as a carer sometimes i had calls for baths that were as little as 20 minutes. How much time are they allowing for the bathing?

221b

Hi Poppy, and thanks for your reply.

They've allowed him 15mins x2 each day for "maintaining personal hygiene".

He doesn't have a shower fitted (although we have asked) and as well as a lot of sensory issues around being wet/dry, he also has skin vulnerabilities so needs cream and stuff administered each time he's washed.  He's also unsteady on his feet and can't bend his head forward to have hair washed eg over a sink/bath, so everything is a bit of a palaver, tbh.

Ideally he needs a bath once a day.  I don't know many people who can run a full bath getting the temperature right, help someone who moves slowly and is a bit wobbly get undressed and into a bath, ensure he's washed and rinsed his entire body and hair carefully, then help to get him out, make sure he's fully dried and he's applied cream, then dry his hair all in the space of 30 mins.  We're not really meant to be doing it all for him, but nudging and prompting, which does takes a mite longer when you need time to process everything.

I'm thinking of how long my wife takes when she has a bath at home - all of the above would definitely take her far longer than 30 minutes - LOL!  It's hard not to feel that everything is a bit of a rush and bang-bang-bang.  Which really doesn't really work for someone like him – it just makes everything rather stressful and he gets agitated.

These timings are his SW allegedly allowing him extra time.  🙃   It also means that if he's lumping the two 15mins together having a bath, there's no time left for eg a morning wash at all.  And we haven't even mentioned him having a shave yet.

idk, feels like we're treating him more like a parcel sometimes, than a human being.

What do you suggest, Poppy?

Thanks, Louis.

poppy123456

He can refer himself for another needs assessment and they will assess his needs again to see if his care can be increased.