Keeping Safe and Well at Home

Looking after an elderly person at home is rewarding and maintains independence but keeping him/her safe at home can be challenging.  This post gives some tips on  ensuring that the elderly person is safe and well at home and reducing stess for carers.

What Carers should know about Incontinence

I remember many years ago the shock of discovering that my elderly mother had become incontinent. It just seemed an impossible situation and looking after her as a carer, I wish I'd known then what I know now. The majority of people who suffer incontinence are over sixty and older people are much more liable to become incontinent because of weakened pelvic muscles, enlarged prostrate glands in men, recurrent uniarary tract infections or simply that they have slowed down and cannot get to the loo quick enough!

Four Ways to Help Someone with Dementia to Eat Well

If you are looking after someone with Dementia you may find that he/she  is no longer interested in food or  forgets to eat regularly or drink enough fluids. . Many people with dementia experience poor appetite and this can greatly affect their health and well being.  Not eating properly can  result in weight loss, increased infections, greater confusion and a lack of energy.  To eat well and healthily the person with dementia should have  a wide range of nutritious food, enough vitamins and minerals, enough fibre, plenty of fluids and very importantly too,....choices which make eating an enjoyable experience.

How to Find Good Homecare Part 2 - Getting a Good Service

Once you have a list of likely companies  do some background research - do they have a website or any literature they can send you?  Find out as much as you can about the companies on your list and then make a shortlist of  2-3 companies you think would be able to potentially provide you with a good service within your area.  Invite them to come and see you in your home (where they will be working), ask them to tell you more about their services and how they operate and ask for a quote for a likely schedule of care for a week (you don't want any surprise bills!).

How to Find Good Homecare Part 1 - Finding a Care Service

What do you do when you think that you may be needing some assistance in the home?  Perhaps  you have had an accident or just come out of hospital after an operation.  Perhaps you are finding that as you get older that those regular  heavy jobs around the house (lifting a basket of washing or carrying the hoover upstairs) is just getting a little too much.  Maybe you have an elderly relative who has been diagnosed with a long term illness and can no longer take care of the house and also needs help with personal care but doesn't want to go into a residential home?  Where on earth do you start? 

Celebrating our 1st Birthday

It's hard to beleive that we are one year's old!  And what a year it's been!  Our first hurdle was to get the registration of our sevice with the Care Quality Commission  - that took eight weeks - but we got there and they passed us as fit for duty!  Then we got our spot contract with the Local Authority which took another few weeks and then we were good to go! 

VAT Increase and Home Care

The dreaded increase in the rate of VAT came into force today and many of us will be wondering if the new prices of goods truely reflects  the increase or if retailers and service providers  are taking the opportunity to hike their prices as well.

Homecare  thankfully is exempt from VAT and therefore there will be no immediate "hiking" of prices for our services.   This will be good news to many elderly people on restricted incomes who depend on social care services to continue to live at home independently.