Walnut Care at Home

Walnut Care were engaged on our behalf as a result of him requiring fully funded end of life care as part of a wider packing which included other care providers and hospice at home care. We were disappointed that they operated an old fashioned written file left in the house and were not able to provide updated feedback to ourselves who lived 4 hours away. we enjoyed excellent service via the on line App OpenPass from the other main provider and proper phone updates and email reports from another. They reluctantly agreed to call us daily but this didn't always happen. Some carers had poor spoken English and were difficult to understand by ourselves and left my father in law distressed at times. The office phone often rang without being answered during normal office hours and no answer phone message facility seemed to be available. Emails were unanswered and when we did get through the team sounded young, unprofessional and lacking in interest - it was always someone else that could help and they were usually not available leading to unacceptable delays in dealing with issues. Other care providers reported that my father in law complained of being roughly handled and on one occasion another care provider arrived as the Walnut team were leaving and found my father in law soaking wet after a rushed bed bath with the comment that they couldn't find any towels. There were piles of freshly laundered and new towels in the airing cupboard and in the bathroom easily found by anyone taking a few minutes to look. Reports were made that there was no food in the house which was not true as we travelled over weekly to restock and another care provider shopped twice weekly and provided receipts. The team seemed to lack any common sense or initiative and when my father in law was given antibiotics for a UTI they refused to co-operate in assisting and communicating with the rest of the providers to ensure he was taking them at the appropriate times. All sadly disappointing and we were left feeling frustrated by this company who disregarded the family and treated my father inlay without the respect he received from the others involved in his care. He was not always properly consulted about his care and at times we discovered that teams simply arrived, didn't introduce themselves and just started to wash him without any consideration fir his dignity or privacy. I think they believed they could get away with this as we lived so far away but we were lucky we were able to keep updated. When we had to start to make plans for him to go into a hospice it was also upsetting that they were more worried about getting their folder back and refused to provide us with a copy of the written notes for our records. Not a great experience
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