THE Bolton News should be congratulated for the headline report and full coverage of the report about sub-standard home care in Bolton.

Unlike the cases highlighted, in our family's case, there is no free service from Bolton Council, as savings are required to be used up and this is at the rate of around £1,300 per month for several care visits each day. There are some very good carers and that must be made clear, but I am astounded at some of the lack of quality of care that costs anything up to £15 per visit.

For almost a year, the despair care has left me in is hard to come to terms with. A real sense of lack of value for money and self-serving care companies and half-hearted efforts by some staff who appear to operate entirely unmanaged once they have been trained and let loose on elderly vulnerable clients.

The employer agencies themselves are not always caring for staff and when zero hours contracts, minimum wages and refusal to pay mileage in some cases applies, staff are not going to be so loyal as to want to turn up every day if it does not suit. A 13 hour shift the day or two before, may suggest a day off is required if it is a gorgeous sunny day. This goes on.

I have seen a relative have no lunch, tea or bed visit due to lack of staff turning up and the agency still charging for a non visit. There is no independent complaint procedure as the business owners investigate themselves. One lunch call for noon to 12.45pm on several occasions began at around 2.45pm due to lack of staff. When I called in I was told to get real and to understand that care agencies are "a business" first and foremost, with no spare staff able to cover for staff shortages. The failure even to call family to let them know is abominable and it goes on all the time, due to a lack of a code of conduct for this industry.

Even the Council's free Rehab Service had its shortcomings with no proper complaints procedure in operation, a refusal to send out a comments form when asked twice and staff not turning up on occasions. So when I read that Bolton Council's Labour Executive Member for care is to investigate care agencies, I suggest he might get his own house in order first of all and put in place a feedback and functioning complaints system.

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