Home care ‘not meeting needs of users’

VULNERABLE pensioners are being left to cope with carers who “can’t even boil an egg”, a hard-hitting report from the home care watchdog has revealed.

Elderly people are having to eat evening meals at 3.30pm and going two weeks without help to shower, it said.

Care visits at varying times and missed appointments are among complaints recorded by Healthwatch England in its report on home care.

The country’s care system is in a “fragile state”, it said, after research

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into the experiences of more than 3,000 service users, their families and staff.

Across England there are more than 8,500 home care providers, collectively helping an estimated 673,000 people with tasks such as washing, dressing and cooking or taking medication.

But Healthwatch says care workers are unfamiliar with the needs of their clients and don’t have enough time to fulfil their duties. Their skills are

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“designed to meet the needs of the service provider rather than the service user”, it says.

A woman in her 80s told how her carers were unable to boil an egg or make the bed, while another said staff need to be taught “common sense”.

Neil Tester, deputy director of Healthwatch England, said: “We heard examples of compassionate care from dedicated staff, but people also talked about care that doesn’t meet even basic standards.”

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