I'm angry about how my father in laws social worker has left them and we are only at the beginning of the journey! No signposting to support networks particularly grates on me. Basically being left to it. That doesn't mean every social worker is like that though and I work on a team of very dedicated workers so I do take it personally that people seem to think social workers generally don't care or don't have anything to offer. I have had some wonderful feedback from some of my clients about the support I was able to offer just by listening for the most part and being happy to pop in and see them to discuss face to face any problems or just to offload, not just with dementia but with other health issues and end of life care. Unfortunately some things don't have easy solutions, or even solutions at all. The expectations people have of social workers is unrealistic sometimes but we try our best. It is very stressful having multiple cases with complex needs and it isn't the sort of job you can easily leave at work when you go home. Now I can't do that at all anyway because my work is part of my home life and my home life is part of my work.
Perhaps you can shed light on how you would conduct a financial management capacity assessment? For example, would you need to be satisfied that the patient has a rough idea of what year we are currently in 2014 and what would you suggest if the answer came back as "2004"? Again the same question asked 5 minutes later but this time answer comes back as "2005". Likewise with what month we currently are in, that is June and the patient answers "November" and a short time later "winter"? Likewise asking the patient to count cash in simple bank notes of 5's and 10's and not be able to count these up correctly at any time or guessing the total which is still incorrect? What about if she is asked what her care fees cost her each week (£900 per week) when she answers £600 per month or another time declares she doesn't know/can't remember? Believes she has access to her bank account when she has no clue where her debit card is, what her pin number is, or be able to look up the telephone number of the bank (any bank!) believing that she has an account with ****** (a particular bank) when this was closed down over a year ago?
Please MLM provide me with some insight bearing in mind the patient has been medically confirmed as having patches of brain damage, suffered strokes, mild cognitive impairment and many confirmed neurological illnesses due to terminal sticky blood syndrome and lupus since 2002 at age 60, still suffers syncopal attacks (fainting/blackouts). I could go on and on.
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