Concept Cash-back!
We were assigned this company by the state to provide complex home care for my mother after she was discharged from a nursing home.
To begin with, the carers were capable, conscientious and fulfilled their duties well. Unfortunately, after around a year, the standard of care deteriorated dramatically. Increasingly, the company supplied carers who appeared poorly trained, inexperienced or simply negligent.
One incident in particular summed up the standard we came to expect. A carer left my mother unattended for a considerable period while she went into another room. During that time, my mother fell. Thankfully she wasn’t seriously injured, but she was left lying on the floor until the carer eventually returned. Rather than immediately helping her, the carer stood over her for several minutes, shouting belittling remarks before finally calling for assistance. Every second of this was captured on camera—a camera the carer knew was there, yet she displayed not the slightest embarrassment or restraint.
When the footage was shown to the company’s owner, we received the now-familiar corporate response: this was “not representative of their usual high standards” and they would ensure more suitably qualified staff were allocated in future. It was the sort of polished, well-rehearsed statement companies issue whenever reality inconveniently collides with their brochure.
Remarkably, the very next day, the same carer was sent back to care for my mother. When challenged, the company apologised and blamed “an administrative error.” Evidently, their administration was every bit as competent as their safeguarding.
Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated incident. It became the pattern for the following year. Hardly a week seemed to pass without another problem. On one occasion, a carer was caught physically abusing and pinching my mother. Each time concerns were raised, the response was identical: apologies, assurances that their “high standards” had not been met, promises that lessons had been learned, and pledges that things would improve. They rarely did.
To be fair, there were some genuinely excellent carers, along with a handful of managers who clearly cared and did everything they could to make a difference. They deserve recognition because they often worked in spite of the organisation rather than because of it. However, it became increasingly apparent that they were constrained by a culture where profitability appeared to take precedence over quality of care, a culture that seemed to reflect the priorities of those at the very top.
I cannot say with certainty that better care would have prolonged my mother’s life. What I can say is that she deserved competent, consistent and compassionate care, and far too often she received the opposite.
The final morning of her care rather neatly encapsulated the preceding year. When my mother became critically ill, the attending carer mistakenly called the fire service instead of an ambulance. The emergency services themselves were excellent, but the firefighters understandably arrived rather puzzled to discover there was no fire, only an elderly lady in medical distress. It was a scene that felt strangely symbolic of the previous twelve months: a catalogue of avoidable errors, confusion and misplaced priorities. If it hadn’t been so tragic, it could almost have passed for a Carry On film.
After my mother passed away in hospital a couple of weeks later, several of the good carers and managers contacted us of their own accord to offer sincere condolences. Their kindness was genuinely appreciated. The company’s owner, however, remained conspicuously silent. Not so much as a card, a phone call or a brief message. One can only speculate that she was too busy calculating the financial implications of losing a particularly lucrative government-funded contract, and whether the weekly income it generated would now have to be found elsewhere. Those premium tyres for her Range Rover don’t buy themselves!
So, it would be fair to say that I cannot recommend this company.
5 June 2026
Unprompted review