Posted 27 November 2009 - 05:38 PM
I used one up to this year. I was new to direct payments and it was the easiers way to sort it out.
Where i live there are a lot of old people so most the people the care agency visit is to old people who need shopping or social calls. I didnt want that. I wanted someone to help me clean my house and push my shopping trolly and i dont need looking after.
I found the cleaning leaving something to be desired ( i could have done as well), the corrners where i cant reach didnt get done. I also hated the way when we went shopping she would walk so slowly and want to go down the alcohol isle (i'm allergic to the stuff so i didnt need to buy any)
What got me more than anything else is the fact that the agency couldnt send me a bill on a regular basis so i was trying to fill in the forms to show SS where i had spend the money and couldnt bcause i didnt have to right invoices and every month when they did come they were incorrect. I didnt think it was that hard to do number of hours (less than 20) x price per hour. I still owe them about 15 hours money but they havent bothered to send me a bill, that was dating back from may.
I now decide who i employ, negative side is i dont get a replacement if my PA is ill but i do decide who comes and when and they come on my terms so if i feel they havent done a good job i can say so.