I have been thinking about the home service carers; life must be so difficult for them in this bad weather. In the past I have complained, forcefully, (MP, County Council, Care Provider, Authority for Quality Control etc. etc.) about the worst aspects of care i.e. they don't turn up or they don't do what they are supposed to do. On one occasion a carer left faecal matter trapped in the bath, towels, bedding etc. all of which she described as having been cleaned . I caught her out because I was, unknown to her, in the house!

My relationship with carers is very much a love / hate one. I love the conscientious ladies, I hate the ones who rush in, do the minimum and look no further than the end of their noses and say they have been there an hour when I can see that much has been left undone. I will go to enormous lengths to help the good ones, even the mediocre ones: I'll cover their tasks if they are late, I'll clean up on their behalf, I'll even write them a reference if they want to get out of the business. I will help them as they help me.

There is very little to attract people to the business of caring. They are effectively self employed and therefore dependent on large numbers of 'clients' to make their living. They are not paid for time spent getting from one job to another. It is not as simple as them only doing clients who are in one particular district. They might go from one end of town to another three or four times in a shift. They might have 15 'tea' calls varying between 15min - 30 mins all within a narrow time band say, 5.00 pm until 6.30. If the calls are as simple as 15 minutes each with travel time on top of that, you do the maths. We have had tea calls late into the night on occasions. If dad needs cleaning up on a call it all takes time and they have to make it up by rushing someone else.

We negotiated, and pay, for an hour every morning for the breakfast call just to ensure they have time to give him time. Lunch call we get by with 30 mins and tea time with 30 mins. Technically this should all work but factor in weather such as we are currently experiencing, inconsistent standards from different carers, staff sickness (always last minute). For a 15 minute call these girls earn approx £3.00. They either don't get enough clients in which case they earn very little - certainly not enough to live on or too many clients which must cause the good ones a huge stress factor.

The turnover of carers is huge and my plea for a certain person is often met with the response "Oh, she's left".

The 'management' of these complex timetables has to factor in personalities, carer's family commitments, whether they can drive, their level of competence in difficult cases. The management personnel get the brunt of problems and they don't last long either!

Our experience has been nightmarish on occasions. The biggest problem can be those carer's who simply don't turn up thus leaving a frail person without food or drink or meds for long, long hours. If I hadn't been around we would have had to put dad in care years ago simply because I could not rely on the level of care from the carers. Dad is fortunate inasmuch as he has us to keep an eye on things and if I am away there are more family members to take up the reins. Many people have no-one.

This last week, with our area deep in snow and ice, where few cars can get around easily I wonder how the carers have managed. The postmen have not delivered for days yet these poor women will have been expected to turn out from 7.00 am and be paid a pittance for doing it.

As I said: it is a love / hate relationship but I have every sympathy for the task they try to do, sometimes in impossible circumstances. If society valued these workers and paid them a decent salary to do a difficult job we would all benefit at some point in our lives.