Care for older people: Pauline's story

I have home care twice a week, this is a personal arrangement and it works very well.

My daily personal care has been arranged through social services. I do not always see the same carer each day and they change fairly frequently. It is difficult to explain my needs each time there is a new carer and it could be so much more satisfactory if it were possible to build a relationship say with a small group of carers on rotation.

In addition, I am not sure of the level of care or experience the carer might have or how their work is monitored or supervised. For example, some carers will wear protective gloves and aprons and shoe covers, others do not wear any form of protective clothing apart from their regular uniform dress. The disposal of gloves and aprons also varies.

I am wheelchair bound so the level of safe transferring, administering personal care and dressing are all important parts of my daily care and wellbeing. I am unaware of the training the carer might have received to help someone who is handicapped. I would add that I have not seen any carer wear any form of identification.

Accessing my general practitioner by visiting the surgery can be difficult when one is reliant upon Dial-a-Ride for transportation. However, my GP does make house calls and I can contact the surgery by telephone for this purpose. It would be easier on a personal level if I were able to contact the practice via e-mail. This has the advantage of having the query documented and would avoid the waiting time for telephone call answers.

I appreciate some GP practices triage telephone calls but a specific allocated slot in which it would be possible to speak to your GP might help some patients. For those patients who are housebound with non-urgent concerns, it could be helpful for such patients to have a telephone slot for consultation.