Dementia/aggression/admission to specialist dementia unit under section of MHA

[Jax18]

Hi , my MIL has recently been admitted to a NH following hospital admission with a fractured ankle . The staff in the home were lovely , unfortunately due to her aggressive challenging behaviour she was admitted to a special dementia unit under a 28 day assessment order .The staff again there were fantastic however she could only stay two days as it was out of the area. Today they moved her again to a local unit today.
Every time we visit her her agitation becomes worse and she keeps asking us to take her home. My husband feels massive guilt and it is making him ill with worry.

Today I came home to see he was visibly shaken as the new unit had phoned him and then put his mum on the phone who then began asking him to take her home and shouting down the phone.

I had to phone them and ask what they had hoped to achieve by this as it upset his mum, who would not remember after 30 minutes or so, but it made my husband ill.
I'm afraid I rang and said it was highly inappropriate to have done this .
Has anyone else had this experience?

 

[Pacucho]

I am afraid I am not surprised by what happened as a lot of NHS staff still have no real understanding how dementia can affect a person and a family. If you are still in contact with the Unit, and if you have the time, you may want to consider raising this with the manager in terms of a training and education issue for the staff involved.

 

[Kevinl]

Hi Jax, welcome to TP
My wife spent 6 months in a secure NHS assessment unit and the rule there was no phone calls.
You could phone in if you wanted and talk to a resident but they weren't allowed to make outgoing calls. Now she's in an EMI nursing home it's the same rule unless I request otherwise and tell them when are convenient times and when not to allow a call.
If she's there under a section 2 or 3 they can refuse her requests, if she's there under a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding order (DoLS) then I'm not sure if blocking phone calls is allowed these days.
Possibly they wanted to see what her reaction to the call would be, if it was an experiment its failed, spectacularly.
I would say though that falling out with places like this is never the best idea, you need to be working with them, when it comes to the sectioning stage they're there trying to work out what's best for her, they now know that phone calls aren't. Let's hope they've learnt a lesson.
K