Care home refusals

[Jester99]

My Father is suffering from rapid decline in mobility, increasingly bewildered and agressive and also has a Type 1 Diabetes problem that is difficult to manage.

Most care homes are not interested in taking this on as the blood sugar/insulin/aggression is very difficult to get right, as blood sugar level extremes present as over medicated or under medicated.

He's in hospital on DOL at the moment and today a nurse just left him a menu to fill in, he can't even see properly at the moment due to poorly treated conjunctivitis.

What are the options if you can't find a care/nursing home and care at home is not possible?

 

[thistlejak]

You should get some help with sourcing a suitable nursing home for your Dad when he is ready for discharge. Try speaking to the hospital social worker and they should help. From what you have said he will probably need an EMI nursing home that specialises in 'extreme' dementia behaviour and that has Nurses on all the time to mange his diabetes.
We were given a list for MIL and , pre covid, viewed them all. Our short list of 3 turned into only one willing to take her on! That said she is settled there and they actually like her. We did ask what happens if no one would take her and her social worker said we would just widen the spread of location until one took her and she would stay where she was until she was placed.
Hope this helps a little.

 

[DennyD]

We did ask what happens if no one would take her and her social worker said we would just widen the spread of location until one took her and would stay where she was until she was placed.

Same for us. My husband needs an EMI nursing placement. Some homes emphasize their specialist dementia care on their websites and when you talk to them. They have been advised by the dementia ward he is currently in. They have places available, but based on their assessments, in some cases not one to one, but paper assessment only, they have refused. Four out of the 5 local ones have refused. It is not clear why, staffing issues have been raised. The fifth has put him on a waiting list - at leas that is something positive. It's taken months. What do people do, where do they go? As a back up I now also have to widen the search. It does not bear thinking about people who have no-one to help them.

 

[Jale]

The hospital social worker contacted about 3 homes while mum was in hospital, not sure if they were care or nursing homes, but 2 of them would not take mum and the 3rd (the home where she is now)did. The placing was for 6 weeks assessment and in the meantime we were given a couple more alternatives to go and view.
To cut the story short mum stayed where she was and we paid a top up.
The social worker at the hospital was very helpful, having said that this was all pre-covid when we could have face to face meetings rather than relying on phone calls.

 

[dah5609]

Hi, we're pretty much in the same boat here. My Dad has been in hospital for over a month now with vascular dementia brought on by a stroke. He is apparently quite mobile at night on the hospital ward, and so, according to the hospital discharge manager, many care homes have been reluctant to take him on due them having a shortage of staff or not being able to cater to his needs....So far 5 homes have rejected him on this basis even though whenever I've visited him in hospital he doesn't seem to be that mobile . So at the moment he's stuck in hospital waiting for discharge - at least it's saving us money I suppose !