banding

M Wheatley

Registered User
Sep 29, 2005
2
0
Somerset
Hi; I am new to this forum. My mum has been in a residential home now for about 3 months, but the staff seem to be having difficlties caring for her. They are conducting an assessment to see if she needs continuing health care and higher banding. Can anyone tell me what this means??
malc
 

Mary Poppins

Registered User
Sep 20, 2005
19
0
64
Yorkshire
Hi Malc
I am in the process of finding a good care home for dad and have been reading all the fact sheets i can. As far as I understand it there are 3 bands to the care element of the total care provided in nursing homes. The NHS have to pay the nursing care element of the weekly fee and this is assessed by them to be low medium or high. I have yet to enter into this minefield but I have heard that the attitiude to AD varies by the assessors as to how much care the individual needs. If the care home feels that more nursing care is required they probably want to increase the band from low to medium or medium to high so they can get more funding to look after your relative for the number of hours a day they feel they need. If I have got anything confused I apologise - I have found over the last 6 months that anything to do with provision in care homes is the most closely guarded secret in the country! I have been going around in circles for some time but found the fact sheets by A society and age concern very informative. My experience of the Citizens advice centre apart from the premium line no which no-one answers after a veeeerrryy long taped intro is when I did get an appointment I knew more than they did - in fact the woman told me it would be easier if my dad was already dead!! A shocked silence by me brought the reponse 'well I didn't actually mean dead' to which I answered 'just not breathing then?' and left. If the nursing care is totally self funded then the nursing element is still paid for by the NHS as they are legally obliged to do so, but the amount is dependent on the assessment. Hope this helps not hinders!