hi everyone,
The more I read about assessments, the more I realise how lucky I have been with mum re getting care in and getting the SS to pay for it.
I live in Scotland and as you probably know, the law is different here. There is provision for funding of personal care. This was pushed through by Henry McLeish in the Scottish Parliament; he was deposed from the post of First Minister shortly afterwards. Some of us think that this was because Westminster was annoyed that he had pushed this through, thus causing an unfavourable comparison with them.
When we had mum's assessment, someone from the social work came round. We were told that we could get carers employed by the council, but that they couldn't guarantee that we would get the same carer in each day and that it could change a lot. The alternative was that they would recommend a couple of companies that we could get this kind of service from. So we picked one and for the next year or so, we got in a single carer from this agency and paid for it ourselves. In the meantime my social worker changed, and he got wind of this. He said that SS should be contributing some money towards this and that we should apply. To do this, we had to fill in details of pensions, savings etc. When it came back the council didn't want to fund us cos we weren't using their workers. We dropped the matter for a couple of months and then our social worker changed again. She said it was b****y ridiculous that we weren't getting funded and she negotiated it that we got the carer from this agency paid for by the council. I have to confess I'm not sure how she wrangled it but i think it goes something like this; under Scots law, we're entitled to about £200 worth of personal care per week in our situation. That is what it costs to bring this carer in for the number of hours that we have. So the council are using central government money rather than their local authority funding to pay for this, and then its not an issue about us using their workers. Mum also goes to a day centre which is a specialist unit for people with mild to moderate dementia and that is free as well. It is also funded by the Scottish Executive. I think this unit is unique though; I don't know of any others like it.
I've probably made you all insanely jealous now, but sometimes things can go right for us. It is very subjective; in this case it depended on our social worker lobbying for us. It also depended on a facility near us, and it depended on the fact that Mum is on Aricept and this has meant that her condition is manageable enough for her to attend the day centre. Mum isn't aggressive, nor does she have delusions and that's a big plus. My sisters were also a great help in pursuing the SS about Mum; every time we phoned the SS we were told our worker was out , so they organised a 'pester power' campaign where each of them phoned up in turn. I think we've been bl**dy lucky. I've kept it to myself up until now, but I've put this in so that you don't give up, you can get results.
Jools
The more I read about assessments, the more I realise how lucky I have been with mum re getting care in and getting the SS to pay for it.
I live in Scotland and as you probably know, the law is different here. There is provision for funding of personal care. This was pushed through by Henry McLeish in the Scottish Parliament; he was deposed from the post of First Minister shortly afterwards. Some of us think that this was because Westminster was annoyed that he had pushed this through, thus causing an unfavourable comparison with them.
When we had mum's assessment, someone from the social work came round. We were told that we could get carers employed by the council, but that they couldn't guarantee that we would get the same carer in each day and that it could change a lot. The alternative was that they would recommend a couple of companies that we could get this kind of service from. So we picked one and for the next year or so, we got in a single carer from this agency and paid for it ourselves. In the meantime my social worker changed, and he got wind of this. He said that SS should be contributing some money towards this and that we should apply. To do this, we had to fill in details of pensions, savings etc. When it came back the council didn't want to fund us cos we weren't using their workers. We dropped the matter for a couple of months and then our social worker changed again. She said it was b****y ridiculous that we weren't getting funded and she negotiated it that we got the carer from this agency paid for by the council. I have to confess I'm not sure how she wrangled it but i think it goes something like this; under Scots law, we're entitled to about £200 worth of personal care per week in our situation. That is what it costs to bring this carer in for the number of hours that we have. So the council are using central government money rather than their local authority funding to pay for this, and then its not an issue about us using their workers. Mum also goes to a day centre which is a specialist unit for people with mild to moderate dementia and that is free as well. It is also funded by the Scottish Executive. I think this unit is unique though; I don't know of any others like it.
I've probably made you all insanely jealous now, but sometimes things can go right for us. It is very subjective; in this case it depended on our social worker lobbying for us. It also depended on a facility near us, and it depended on the fact that Mum is on Aricept and this has meant that her condition is manageable enough for her to attend the day centre. Mum isn't aggressive, nor does she have delusions and that's a big plus. My sisters were also a great help in pursuing the SS about Mum; every time we phoned the SS we were told our worker was out , so they organised a 'pester power' campaign where each of them phoned up in turn. I think we've been bl**dy lucky. I've kept it to myself up until now, but I've put this in so that you don't give up, you can get results.
Jools
