Home Instead Senior Care highlights “black economy” care concerns

Home Instead Senior Care, which provides home care services for our seniors, recently highlighted its concerns surrounding the growing “black economy” in the elderly care sector.

With a rapidly expanding population of over 65s, senior care services have never been more in demand and this has lead to a culture of unregulated, uninsured and unvetted carers providing services in the marketplace.

Home Instead Senior Care has warned of the consequences of availing of such unregulated services.  Danette Connolly, Director of Care, said that all care providers should be regulated and undergo external auditing processes, and this is something that Home Instead Senior Care has been campaigning for.

“Some of the statistics that are emerging surrounding senior care in Ireland are frightening.  There are a growing number of individual carers and companies providing home care services and are not following good practice. This can cause undue stress and worry to the senior and their family.”

Danette added, “Currently Ireland’s home care market is completely unregulated. Seniors are availing of care that is not monitored and some are directly employing carers, leaving themselves vulnerable as they are the employer but are not necessary fulfilling all the employer obligations, such as insurance cover, health and safety regulations and tax requirements.”

According to Linda Gallagher, Joint Managing Director of First Ireland, specialist Insurance Brokers to the care industry, people engaging carers through the black economy can find themselves in a vulnerable position if an accident occurs.

“It is most likely in such cases that the carer will not carry their own insurance cover.  In the senior care sector the number one claim relates to injuries caused either to the carer or the senior themselves by their moving and handling.  If the carer is not employed by a professional, insured senior care specialist company, and sustains an injury, they will be advised to sue the homeowner or whoever engaged their services.  In addition, the senior themselves will have no recourse to anybody in the event of them sustaining an injury.”

In order to administer competent and effective home care all care providers should be fully insured, attend to Garda vetting and the care staff should be trained, supervised and constantly monitored, which will alleviate a lot of stress and worry for seniors and their families.

Home Instead Senior Care CAREGivers are regularly monitored and undergo Gardai vetting.  Home Instead Senior Care was also recently awarded ISO certification which copper-fastens its commitment to quality care, customer service and continual improvement.

ISO 9001, which is administered by the International Organisation for Standardisation, is recognised globally as the guideline for establishing and maintaining an effective quality management system for businesses in any sector.

For further information about the services of Home Instead Senior Care log onto www.homeinstead.ie or call 051 333966