Personal Care in Exeter

Personal care in Exeter, done by someone you know

Of everything on this site, personal care is where the difference between one carer and a rota is felt most keenly. Being helped to wash by a stranger is hard. Being helped by a different stranger every week is worse, and it is the reason so many older people turn care down altogether and go without help they need. When the person helping is the same person every time, the awkwardness happens once and then it is over. After that, it is just me, and I know how you like things done.

I take personal care slowly and I take my lead from the person. That means asking rather than assuming, doing only what is needed, leaving as much as possible to the person themselves, and never, ever hurrying. Nobody is timed in the shower because there is nobody waiting in the next street.

What personal care includes

Washing, whether that is a full shower, a bath, or a wash at the sink on days when the bathroom feels like too much. Hair washed and dried. Teeth or dentures. Shaving. Skin cared for and checked while I am at it. Dressing in what the person has chosen to wear, with the fiddly bits, buttons, bras, socks and shoes, done by me where fingers no longer manage them. Help with using the toilet, with pads and continence products, and with keeping clean and comfortable between visits. And help moving, from bed to chair, chair to bathroom, and safely around the house.

What it includes for you is agreed at the first visit and written down. Some people want help with the shower and nothing else. Some need the full routine morning and evening. It is your list, not mine.

Privacy and dignity, in practice

Dignity is a word every care leaflet uses and few explain. In practice it means the bathroom door is closed. The curtains are drawn before anyone is undressed. Towels are warm and ready before the water is on, so nobody stands cold and exposed while somebody looks for one. Whatever can be kept covered is kept covered. Conversation carries on as normal, because the worst thing about being washed is the silence. And when something is embarrassing, it is treated as ordinary, because to me it is.

Continence support

Continence is the part of personal care families find hardest to talk about, and it is often the reason families first look for help. It is dealt with cleanly, quickly and without comment. Pads changed, skin cared for, clothes and bedding sorted, and no fuss made. If a continence nurse is involved, I follow whatever they have set up. If nobody has yet asked the GP about it, I will gently suggest that somebody does, because there is often more help available than families realise.

Moving safely

Helping someone from bed to chair or through to the bathroom is where injuries happen, to the person and to the carer. I am trained in moving and handling, and I use whatever equipment is in the house, a frame, a turntable, a bed lever, a grab rail, properly. What I will not do is attempt a transfer that needs two people, or use a hoist I have not been trained on, because the risk is not worth it. If that is what is needed, I will say so at the first visit and help you find the right service.

Personal care and dementia

Someone with dementia may not understand why a person is in their bathroom, and may resist. The answer is never to insist. It is the same face, the same time of day, the same order of doing things, and a great deal of patience. Some days the shower will not happen and a wash at the sink will have to do. Some days nothing will happen at all, and that is fine, and I will try again tomorrow. Over weeks, familiarity does most of the work.

Where the limits are

I do not provide nursing care. Wounds, catheters, stomas and anything clinical belong with the district nurses, and I work alongside their visits. I do not do overnight care. I cannot move somebody who needs two people. And I cannot send a replacement when I am unavailable, so we plan for that before the first visit. Everything within those limits, I do carefully and I do properly.