Bit of a silly question - respite care for self-funding

myss

Registered User
Jan 14, 2018
449
0
The reason why I think it may be a silly question is because I think I know the answer but still wanted to ask.

There is no question on whether my dad is self-funding or not, he definitely wouldn't qualify for council assistance. The finance question aside, I am presuming that it is possible to get respite care for someone who is self-funding and what I then need to do is to go to some care homes and ask if they do this and how much.

Other than checking their stats, reports and facilities, is there anything else? Do anyone else has this type of respite care for their pwd? If you do, how has it worked out?
 

j.s.king

Registered User
Oct 23, 2017
30
0
Southampton , England
Yes you can self fund respite care direct with care homes that offer the facility. I've found one in my area that has rooms specifically allocated for short term respite. i have been able to reserve one for my dad when i go on holiday in May. Unfortunately most care homes do not have allocated respite rooms so you cant book until a week or so before you need it as they don't know when they will have any spare rooms to use for respite .It seems only the larger homes have dedicated rooms for respite that are bookable.
I have to self fund dad respite when i go away for holidays as Social just want to add an extra 15 min carer slot in for him for the 2 weeks i'm away ..
 

Sarasa

Volunteer Host
Apr 13, 2018
7,145
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Nottinghamshire
This is a very timely thread as my brother and I are thinking of respite for my mother so we can give her flat a good clean and hopefully get a buyer for it. Also we'd see how she'd cope with a move to a care home. At the moment she is happy to move, but only if she thinks she is moving to somewhere comparable to where she lives now. I think we can sneak supported housing past her, not sure we could do the same with a home.
 

Philbo

Registered User
Feb 28, 2017
853
0
Kent
The reason why I think it may be a silly question is because I think I know the answer but still wanted to ask.

There is no question on whether my dad is self-funding or not, he definitely wouldn't qualify for council assistance. The finance question aside, I am presuming that it is possible to get respite care for someone who is self-funding and what I then need to do is to go to some care homes and ask if they do this and how much.

Other than checking their stats, reports and facilities, is there anything else? Do anyone else has this type of respite care for their pwd? If you do, how has it worked out?


My wife attends 1 day a week at a local (East Kent) integrated care centre. It's run and staffed by the NHS mental health trust for the local authority. She is self funding so has to pay but as this was arranged via her adult social care SW, it is charged at the LA rate.

The centre also has a respite care unit and I was able to get her a week in there, last August so I could attend a friend's 50th birthday event in Majorca.:cool: It was the first proper respite in almost 5 years so I definitely needed the break.

Again, as it was all arranged via the LA, it was relatively cheap at £619 for 9 nights stay (I've been told that private respite places elsewhere can be much more expensive and difficult to find?). The staff from the day centre often work in the respite unit so she at least had some familiar faces (though I doubt she noticed?).

Though I needed the break, I was very apprehensive about how she'd get on but also, what she'd be like coming home. I knew she should be okay as she's a happy soul and in her own little world. Our sons, her sister and a friend each popped in during her stay and I rang the unit every day. All was fine and she settled in back home very quickly.

Good luck
Phil
 

northumbrian_k

Volunteer Host
Mar 2, 2017
4,363
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Newcastle
My wife has paid privately (self-funded) for residential respite care at a dedicated facility for people with dementia, which has just 5 rooms and is on the same site as a day centre which she can use when in residence. She had 2 stays last year (3 and 6 nights) and has 3 more stays (4, 10 and 4 nights) booked through to June this year. The centre my wife goes to costs £100 per day/night and, because it is small and popular, books up months in advance. There may be similar units in other parts of the country.

I haven't tried using any of the local care homes and am not sure what they offer or how easy it might be to get short-term respite, but I suspect the answer would be 'rather difficult'.

Hope that you manage to find somewhere suitable.
 

la lucia

Registered User
Jul 3, 2011
592
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This is one of my BIGGEST outrages (amongst a large collection) of caring for a person with dementia. The general lack of respite facilities since social care was privatised and the ludicrous impossibility of a lot of it.

@Philbo we used to have one of these integrated respite/daycare centres down in my area a few years back. It also provided local domiciliary care so staff had proper local authority contracts, decent training and staff benefits. No zero hours. Sadly it got sold off along with some very good local authority care homes when everything was privatised.

It outrages me because the underlying assumption is that carers are invisible and not respected - dish out a few platitudes and that's it for most.

The cherry on the cake for me was the carers assessment which ranked me as having extremely high needs and offered me absolutely nothing. I said a very loud, very rude word and the assessor went quiet and said softly: "yes, quite a few people have responded like that."

Down here all I can do is have a last minute care home place of dubious quality, no advance booking and extortionate fees. The last one charged me a thousand pounds +/- for a long weekend and left my mum in her room the entire time. And it was the only place available and allegedly 'posh'. Grrr.

What really angers me is it has killed my career needlessly. I was managing to go from full-time caring to a week at a war crimes investigation, or a week on a reporting trip and publishing - seamlessly - keeping my name and my work 'out there' so to speak even if not as prolifically as before. But that was down to family and that support isn't available now.

I haven't had a day off for several years and if I used my mum's money to pay for weeks in a care home now not only would it not be bookable which is useless, and the 'care' would be questionable but we'd soon run out of money and need state funding and our independence and choice would go out of the window.

Alongside all this is the outrage that our local NHS CCG has closed cottage hospitals and commandeered nearly every spare care home room so that they can cook the books of their discharge figures. There are no spare rooms for respite. People are chucked out of hospital and into care homes until or if, they can find care packages. The entire system is shot to pieces if you dig below the surface.

In policy terms it's stupid and short term money snatching idiocy when in reality if social care policy made family carers a focal point and built out from there by looking after them with access to respite etc, more people would be willing and able to do it. And careers wouldn't be so hammered.

Anyway, rant over :D I hope @myss you can find something in your area. I'd try and ask other carers if possible for suggestions maybe find a local dementia café? Then even if you can't book it in advance you have a few recommendations lined up at least. And yes, your father will have to pay for it. Not being able to plan ahead is dire for flights and everything else but maybe you will strike lucky and find something. I wouldn't say much if anything to your father meanwhile. Best of luck with it.
 

myss

Registered User
Jan 14, 2018
449
0
Thank you for your replies and confirming what I thought! I was hoping (if my siblings felt the same) that perhaps my dad could go into respite care for a few days once a month, but I guess I have to look around and see if anyone could offer that or just go with a week now and again for that break.

Thanks again.


Thank you this, for some reason despite filling out the details for the search, when I click submit nothing happens! :) It may be just a glitch with the page or with the Google Chrome browser.
 

myss

Registered User
Jan 14, 2018
449
0
Anyway, rant over :D I hope @myss you can find something in your area. I'd try and ask other carers if possible for suggestions maybe find a local dementia café? Then even if you can't book it in advance you have a few recommendations lined up at least. And yes, your father will have to pay for it. Not being able to plan ahead is dire for flights and everything else but maybe you will strike lucky and find something. I wouldn't say much if anything to your father meanwhile. Best of luck with it.
Hi @la lucia I didn't see your post before my last one. Feel free to rant away on this thread if you like, I don't think much people who work in the caring industry or are carers would disagree with you.

Thank you for your suggestions above, I didn't think of asking the local dementia cafe plus I have a local support group I go to now and again, I can ask there too.
 

Toony Oony

Registered User
Jun 21, 2016
576
0
Hi @myss
My Mum is self-funding and has been living about 18 months at her CH. I used respite (although I called it 'a little pampering holiday') to get her into the CH. I arranged for it to morph seamlessly into full time residential dementia care, if things went well, Thankfully they did. I would call the Home medium sized - about 65 rooms - it is owned by a chain and is probably nearer the top end in terms of fees. I checked for the respite in the same way as I would for prospective
full time residential care. Mum had to be assessed for respite in the same way as she would have for permanent care.

I visit Mum every other day, am on good terms with all the staff there and observe all the comings and goings. There have been many 'respites' in the last year and a half. The Home seem to work on the premis that if they can possibly offer respite care for a few weeks (the maximum if I remember rightly is 4 weeks consecutively), they will. If it goes well for resident and family alike, there is a good chance that the respite resident will return at some point as a full time one, so they see it as a good bit of marketing for the Home.

There have been respites after hospitalisation, respites for family breaks/holidays etc and those who are 'trying before they buy' as it were. One lovely gentleman has come to stay on several occasions and is welcomed back like an old friend. I am sure he will be welcomed as a full time resident when the time comes.

The natural turnover of residents sadly creates an empty room quite often. The Home attempt to keep a 'show' room available for prospective viewings - but often this is pulled into use at short notice for respite.

I would ring your local CH's and ask. I'm not sure if Mum's CH is typical, but I can only speak from my experience.
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,360
0
Kent
Thank you this, for some reason despite filling out the details for the search, when I click submit nothing happens! :) It may be just a glitch with the page or with the Google Chrome browser.

I put into the search engine " Respite care for self funders in......................" then I added my area.
 

Sirena

Registered User
Feb 27, 2018
2,324
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I know there is a problem with LA funded respite places, but I would be surprised if there is the same problem with self funded respite. My mother's care home now accepts only self-funded clients (previously the LA was their biggest client but the LA no longer pays enough). They usually have respite places available with no problem, it's a lovely CH, but 'homely' rather than swish. I found them via

https://www.carehome.co.uk/
 

la lucia

Registered User
Jul 3, 2011
592
0
I know there is a problem with LA funded respite places, but I would be surprised if there is the same problem with self funded respite. My mother's care home now accepts only self-funded clients (previously the LA was their biggest client but the LA no longer pays enough). They usually have respite places available with no problem, it's a lovely CH, but 'homely' rather than swish. I found them via

https://www.carehome.co.uk/
We're self-funding and finding respite care places is impossible in our area as I said above. If I want to grab a random bed without any advance booking there "may" be something but as I said, even paying stupid money, my mother's short respite care was not good.

I did spell it out in my post including the fact that the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group are snatching spare capacity in our area.

If it's good in your area that's lucky but hardly anyone I know in other areas can book places well in advance or even get a space in some areas or if they can get last minute places choice is limited. Except one guy I know in London who somehow gets regular state-funded respite care for his wife and can still work as a housing consultant to some degree at least.

I guess like everything else with dementia it's a postcode lottery but certainly being self-funding is no guarantee. I'd kill for a break if it was bookable in advance.
 

Sirena

Registered User
Feb 27, 2018
2,324
0
We're self-funding and finding respite care places is impossible in our area as I said above. If I want to grab a random bed without any advance booking there "may" be something but as I said, even paying stupid money, my mother's short respite care was not good.

I did spell it out in my post including the fact that the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group are snatching spare capacity in our area.

If it's good in your area that's lucky but hardly anyone I know in other areas can book places well in advance or even get a space in some areas or if they can get last minute places choice is limited. Except one guy I know in London who somehow gets regular state-funded respite care for his wife and can still work as a housing consultant to some degree at least.

I guess like everything else with dementia it's a postcode lottery but certainly being self-funding is no guarantee. I'd kill for a break if it was bookable in advance.

Such a shame that you cannot get decent respite care in your area. As you say, there are no guarantees but I hope myss's area is less restrictive on respite beds than yours, and the suggestions in the thread help her to find something.
 

Lozzy&Barry

New member
Feb 13, 2021
5
0
Thank you for your replies and confirming what I thought! I was hoping (if my siblings felt the same) that perhaps my dad could go into respite care for a few days once a month, but I guess I have to look around and see if anyone could offer that or just go with a week now and again for that break.

Thanks again.



Thank you this, for some reason despite filling out the details for the search, when I click submit nothing happens! :) It may be just a glitch with the page or with the Google Chrome browser.
I am in this position too my dad middle to late stage Alzheimer’s and is 81 an escapee very fit for 81 swimming 30
Lengths x3 a week so the places have to be very secure.

I found this site called Lotte who had lots of
Respite care homes all the information in one place was Amazing.
Pics of homes who they take, security, CQC ratings only thing is non will
Book you in very much in advance which I understand they are full time beds when free seems To be unless ya millionaires seems to be no places just for respite only it’s a full time bed if there is room with just sometimes as Few as 2 weeks notice which is no good to me I’ve paid £2300 for my flights to Australia in august for three weeks 2
Days snd I need to sort it out x
One said they would
a Month in advance so after looking at
More detailI think he’s going there it’s in beautiful secure gardens