Care - who pays for it & what is available

[IMF]

Hi
Very new to this & need to start thinking about care for my Mum. She has been diagnosed with Frontal Lobe Dementia &is rapidly declining at the moment. What kind of care do social services offer? Who pays for this?
She is not ready for residential care yet, I dont think so anyway.
When and who decides about residential care if required? What kind of symptons trigger this?

I have so many questions & not sure where t start

Thanks

[TinaT]

The first thing I would do is phone up social services - they can be got by phoning the Local Authority number and ask for a social worker to come and assess your mum. If they do not give you a date for this, then you will have to keep 'pestering' them as sometimes it can take a long time to get a social worker out to assess your mum's needs. There are four catagories the assessment will fall into: critical, severe, moderate, or mild. For whichever of these categories the social worker/ nurse assessor puts your mother into, she/he should then draw up a care plan setting out your mother's needs for care. Try to make sure you are there for the assessment as you need to input what care she needs.

The next step would be assessing how this care is to be paid for. Because of Government cuts, only those assessed as critical or severe will get extra funding which is now called 'personalised budget'. Depending on the critical or severe assessment and your mother's income she will be given this personaliseed budget to spend how she (usually in dementia cases it ends up being the relative) wants this care to be delivered. Many Local Authority run establishments such as day care, lunch clubs etc., are being closed and private agencies are taking these over. These agencies will either have to be funded out of the personalised budget or by her own income /the family paying for them.

Whether your mother pays wholly, is part funded or wholly funded, the Local Authority have a duty of care to her and must provide information as to where the services she will need can be obtained.

Sorry this is a long post but things are rapidly changing in the Adult Social Care World and do need explaining nowadays.

xxTinaT

[IMF]

Thanks for the info.
What determines critical or severe? Are there any guidelines on this? What kind of actions or circumstances mean they asses her as critical or severe?
She is retired and her income is just a pension. What if she cannot afford the care? I have no idea how much this costs.

Thanks and sorry for all the questions

[vicky!]

Apparently my husband's funding comes from the NHS and not much through social services (who to be honest aren't really up to much anyway), this is due to his age and condition apparently. He has FTLD. He was only diagnosed officially last year but this has been going on for a good few years. His investigations must have started at least 4-5 years ago. He is currently 41. Also his neurologist referred him to the local Mental Health Team. Hope this helps

[BeckyJan]

Hello IMF:

Its good you are looking into this as it can be complicated, made worse by LA cuts in funding.

You may find these factsheets useful:

http://www.dementiaweb.org.uk/who-pa...entia-care.php

http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/script...documentID=131

[JPG1]

IMF,

Tina is guiding you in the right direction - and things are changing rapidly in the world of care. So rapidly, that some local authorities are now heavily restricting and 'rationing' care.

And I'm sorry to say that where I live, the local authority will now only provide funded social services assistance for people with critical needs only. Even personal budgets are affected:

"If your assessment shows you have needs that fall within the Critical band, and have no support in place (like help from an unpaid carer or other unpaid support), you will be eligible for help from the Council. If you are assessed as Low, Moderate, or Substantial, you will not be eligible for a personal budget."

Here's a link to North Lincolnshire's "Fair Access to Care" - plucked at random, but it will give you a guide as to how the various categories are defined:

http://www.northlincs.gov.uk/NorthLi...cessToCare.htm

You will need to find out more from the Local Authority where your Mum lives, about their care provision. Or you can Google for it.

But the SS still has a duty to carry out a full needs assessment and create a care plan.

Good luck!

[Lauren]

Some of this advice is great and as they say your 1st point of care would be a social services referral!

But i must say whatever people say It is up to you when you feel your mum will be put into a home, depending how much you and your family/ friends/ home carers can support her.

For instance my mum needs 24hour care as she cannot walk, feed herself or even communicate and i know alot of people feel that they could not cope with this but the truth is we can and we would much rather her be in a loving enviroment with us. We take her out in our special wheel chair car so she has some sort of quality of life although most of the time she has know idea what we are doing.

We hoist her and do everything for her so although you mum may not get as bad as mine i feel that a care home is not always your only option.

I do hope this helps!!
Take care be happy because as the saying goes if we dont laugh we will just cryxxx