advice needed

[taylorcat]

I wonder if someone can help me.

Dad finally agreed he can no longer care for Mum at home and put her name down for a nursing home which we went to see and have had good reports about.

She is presently in a geriatric unit.

Dad just phoned to say the social worker has been on the phone to him to say that it would be better if he had more than one choice of nursing home because there is no funding at the moment and when a room becomes available the funding has to be available at the same time or you lose the room. He thinks the funding will be available soon but has talked my Dad into going to see another nursing home although we were quite happy with the first one. (My Mum will be self funding).

Not too sure if I'm making much sense but I know this social worker tries to save every penny he can.

Is he right in what he is saying.

 

[Mameeskye]

Hi

My understanding of the legislation up here is that if you are self funding you will be assessed as needing either a personal care element or a nursing care element. The portion you pay supposedly relates purely to living expenses ie room, board etc. Once this has been assessed it is the same rate regardless of which home you move into.

My mum was in hospital and as soon as we had her home picked out she moved in with the nursing care element paid, though we then fund the self funded element (and don't get me started upon how the care homes increase this inordinately every year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

A friend though has a Mum who was self funding and she had to wait for funding to become available. It seemed at the end of the day that SW were willing to pick up the tab for interim funding until her home sold or at least for the first few weeks, but to do this she had to wait, but it meant that the first few weeks would have been covered. In this event my friend just moved her Mum in and then covered her fees anyway and the home was the best one suited to her Mum's needs and she didn't want her Mum to lose her place.

I dn't think that I have fully got to grips with this funding issue yet!

I've probably just confused you further but it might be worth chatting to the SW again to try and get to the bottom of it.

mameeskye

 

[jenniferpa]

Hopefully Alfjess will be on later because she's done the nursing home route with her parents. I'm not sure if this is similar, but at the time, I believe she was told that there was no funding available. However, I found an ombudsman report that indicated the no funding argument wouldn't hold water: they have to find the funding from somewhere. Let me see if I can find the thread and I'll post it here.

 

[jenniferpa]

O.K. this is the thread I was thinking of. I don't know if it mirrors your situation or not
http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/TalkingPoint/discuss/showthread.php?t=6295

 

[Skye]

I have a horrible feeling this is a battle I'll be fighting before too much longer.