Home InsteadReviews of homeinstead.com

Terrible care staff

Called tonight to inquire about some rates for my aged mother and was told it was late at night and what did I need. The woman that answered sounded like she may have been drinking or something else. She said it's after midnight what did I want about homecare. I explained where I was was still in Canada and nowhere near Midnight She hung up on me. SUPER BAD CONDUCT very disappointed will never use this company ever!!!! This is how their sales team reacts can't imagine if you had an actual problem wit a loved one. SO SORRY I'm not in your time zone maybe don't offer late hour service quotes. Seems obvious to me this company only wants a quick high priced sell.

Best place to work!!

Do not use this company I wish I’d read the reviews before I engaged Home Instead. I too found them charming and cooperative until the contracts were signed, at which point service declined rapidly. The managers claimed to know their carers but in fact got them from a pool, chosen after one zoom interview. One of our live in carers was basically a teenager who’d had no experience of running a home and spent more time on her iPhone than engaging with my wife. Eventually she locked herself out after my wife had had a fall. Another one was rude and insubordinate, telling me she could pack her bags whenever I asked her to do anything she didn’t want to. I once came home and found her sitting several feet behind my wife who was partly dressed, in her wheelchair, not talking to her, because she’d got distressed by the way the carer had handled her that morning. Invoices were supposed to be monthly. Two weeks after I’d terminated our contract I hadn’t had a single invoice so I added up what I thought we owed and sent an email. This had to be followed up a week later and finally I got a response. Home Instead’s administration, like their level of care, is appalling.

Have worked for this company for a while. Terrible training, incompetent management, badly organised, under paid and erratic hours. Don’t care one bit about their staff and employ half wits who couldn’t look after a goldfish rather than a person. Can’t divide work up properly, move people around clients so they can’t develop a bond and tell lies when a client doesn’t want them anymore or asks for a new cared. I wouldn’t have them near a relative of mine.

Home instead are a shockingly negligent organisation and I do not recommend them. While they employ some lovely, attentive carers, they also employ carers who don't care. We pay for 4 visits a day to my disabled mother, including a nighttime visit, to ensure that she is helped into bed each night. Four nights ago, the carer didn't turn up and didn't tell us. My mother tried to get herself into bed and had a fall as a result. We didn't notice until the middle of the night, by which time she'd been on the floor for hours and we had to call an ambulance to help her up as I couldn't reach my sister who lives 10 minutes away. Luckily my sister eventually woke up and was able to go round and help my mother up. The camera in her room saved her life but - shockingly - Home Instead has reported the camera to social services and had it removed. What happened was that some of the carers were closing my mother's bedroom door - making it virtually impossible for her to get out of the room in the night with her walker. Other carers were not ensuring she went to the loo at night, meaning she would wake up in a few hours and try to get up to use the loo - she had a couple of falls as a result. Other carers were leaving the light on at night, even though we had asked them to switch it off - my mother would wake up in the night and think it was morning and try to get up - she had a fall as a result. We noticed all this because of the camera and asked the carers if they would leave the door open, switch off the light and ensure she used the loo before bed. One or more of the carers didn't like that someone was "telling them now to do their job", so they retaliated by complaining that we had a camera in her room and had it removed. The worst thing was that they did this without giving us any notice meaning we didn't have time to put other monitoring devices into place. This means that we can no longer see if she's had a fall in the night. So tonight we are not able to look after her properly since they only switched it off at 8pm. You can reach your own conclusions about this company based on our experiences.

*AVOID* - As other have said they charge for 4 weeks of non-care if you cancel despite hospital admission, death or sudden care-home requirements (all highly likely). This amounts to £10s of thousands for some. This criminal cash-grab on the vulnerable must be made illegal and limited to two weeks at most. Many other more legitimate companies offer 24 hour cancellation for more experienced care; and I strongly recommend you go with these others; don't fall for the flashy website and 'for us it's personal' frontage. There are all-round better and cheaper agencies out there.

Install cameras in you homes !!!! My mother DIED under the watch of a former Home Instead aide less than two days after she was in her home; we have her timesheet. I was never informed when my mother was transported away to die, and the Home Instead aide never called the Yost facility in Forest Hills to report the transport. The building’s security cameras caught the aide on video trespassing in her building from the time my mother was wheeled away, until two o’ clock the next morning.