Re: People with dementia short changed out of £100 million
I'm not a carer, but a care assistant. I currently work within elderly residential but I have worked within EMI, (elderly mentally ill) and young people with learning and physical disabilities.
The amount of times I have answered the phone or the door to people who are trying to sell one of the clients something is unreal. Somehow these companies get hold of changes of address and target. Some are quite rude and demand to see the person, especially if the person has already had dealings with the company and they want to sell them something else.
Needless to say, I tell them to contact the next of kin and send them on their way. I shudder to think what happens to people as vulnerable as the ones I care for when they don't have someone there.
I think the worst one was someone trying to sell life insurance. The client had had a policy with them a few years before but it had lapsed, and they had sent stuff and tried to contact them by phone. I got someone on the phone one day, after the client had passed away. I couldn't tell them why the client couldn't come to the phone, just that they couldn't because of confidentiality. They were quite rude. It would have been awful to have someone ringing me up to try and sell my loved one life insurance when they had just died.
Something needs to be done.
I'm not a carer, but a care assistant. I currently work within elderly residential but I have worked within EMI, (elderly mentally ill) and young people with learning and physical disabilities.
The amount of times I have answered the phone or the door to people who are trying to sell one of the clients something is unreal. Somehow these companies get hold of changes of address and target. Some are quite rude and demand to see the person, especially if the person has already had dealings with the company and they want to sell them something else.
Needless to say, I tell them to contact the next of kin and send them on their way. I shudder to think what happens to people as vulnerable as the ones I care for when they don't have someone there.
I think the worst one was someone trying to sell life insurance. The client had had a policy with them a few years before but it had lapsed, and they had sent stuff and tried to contact them by phone. I got someone on the phone one day, after the client had passed away. I couldn't tell them why the client couldn't come to the phone, just that they couldn't because of confidentiality. They were quite rude. It would have been awful to have someone ringing me up to try and sell my loved one life insurance when they had just died.
Something needs to be done.
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