Sir, – I write to you in full support of the need to improve the monitoring of care homes for the elderly and vulnerable people.
However, there is one sector involved in the provision of care that has absolutely no monitoring system in place – the private care agencies that provide care for the elderly and vulnerable in their own homes.
In recent years my family had occasion to use the services of two such agencies, to support me in my role as primary carer to my parents, both in their nineties, both of high dependency, one of whom had Alzheimer’s, one of whom had Parkinson’s.
One of these private care agencies we found extremely satisfactory, with well-trained, efficient carers, and a responsive management system. However, our experience with the other care agency was unsatisfactory in the extreme.
At the time I attempted to lodge a complaint with the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), to be told that private care agencies providing care in the home do not fall under its remit. I then went to the HSE, and met with the manager of disability services for the area in which my parents lived.
I stressed to this person that though we as a family were extremely distressed by our experiences with this care agency, we were also very concerned for those families who did not have a family member present to monitor the care provided to their loved ones, and that we were also aware that the agency in question was employed by the HSE as a provider of HSE healthcare packages.
The reply I finally got from the HSE was that because we had hired this care agency on a private basis, it was not their concern either.
It is vital that a satisfactory monitoring and supervision system be put in place for vulnerable and elderly people being cared for in their own homes.
My fear is that the experience of my family is not an isolated one. Many families do not have a family member as part of the team of carers, as I was, and are therefore not able to observe and monitor the work of the care agencies on the ground.
It is reckless in the extreme to allow this situation to continue. – Yours, etc,
ELEANOR LAMB,
Carndonagh,
Co Donegal.