Mum's vascular dementia has gone rapidly downhill in the past six months, compounded by various physical problems and several falls. She's been living in her own home with a couple of care visits a day, but ended up in hospital in mid-December with a suspected infection in her leg ulcers. She was then discharged at virtually no notice, with the hospital claiming that her care package was adequate and without further discussion, at which point we had to step in to provide the 24-hour care we felt she needed to keep her safe. All her falls took place in the early morning, hours before her carers were due to visit.
In late December she ended up in hospital again following a series of seizures and general increasing mental and physical frailty. After a couple of nights she was moved to a community bed where she was getting patchy (non-medical) care and getting more and more confused and unhappy. Fearing another decline and/or sudden discharge, we went ahead and found a place for her in a local nursing home, only to be informed by the hospital social workers that she shouldn't be discharged before she'd had an assessment, with the implication that this might affect her eligibility for the 12 week property disregard in respect of her nursing home fees. Having to make a decision on my feet, I said that I'd prefer to avoid anything that would delay her discharge, which the social worker was quite sniffy about. (Mum's own social worker has so far failed to respond to any attempts to contact her about mum's increased needs - we've had just one visit back in September, and a great deal has changed since.)
My question is, has our inadvertent bypassing of procedures, prompted by our bad experiences after the first hospital stay, jeopardised our finances, or can we still get an assessment and/or apply for the disregard retrospectively? Mum will be self funding, but any help with this would of course be very useful!
In late December she ended up in hospital again following a series of seizures and general increasing mental and physical frailty. After a couple of nights she was moved to a community bed where she was getting patchy (non-medical) care and getting more and more confused and unhappy. Fearing another decline and/or sudden discharge, we went ahead and found a place for her in a local nursing home, only to be informed by the hospital social workers that she shouldn't be discharged before she'd had an assessment, with the implication that this might affect her eligibility for the 12 week property disregard in respect of her nursing home fees. Having to make a decision on my feet, I said that I'd prefer to avoid anything that would delay her discharge, which the social worker was quite sniffy about. (Mum's own social worker has so far failed to respond to any attempts to contact her about mum's increased needs - we've had just one visit back in September, and a great deal has changed since.)
My question is, has our inadvertent bypassing of procedures, prompted by our bad experiences after the first hospital stay, jeopardised our finances, or can we still get an assessment and/or apply for the disregard retrospectively? Mum will be self funding, but any help with this would of course be very useful!
) found themselves in the position of having to sell a property rather than those that have sometimes had many years to decide what to do.
