My 91-year-old Dad has since January had two spells in hospital and one interim stay in a residential EMI home. He has now been sent home without ANY formal assessments having taken place based only on the social worker saying It's what he wants!! His wife is 82 and has her own health issues and wasn't even consulted about this decision. The local authority did however provide him with 24-hour care however we have been told that this will end pretty soon and be replaced with domiciliary care of 4 short visits a day and no night cover at all!! This is causing us all as a family great anxiety as Dad is not lucid most days now but does have some good days, he is now unable to get out of bed unaided, has a catheter and experiences low blood pressure causing him to fall if he is standing or sitting in a chair for more than 10 minutes. He eats very little now and is very frail.
I have made representation to his social worker about this but she is adamant that the service will not be extended past the date given (5 pm on Monday 29th) surprisingly we are told that he does not meet the criteria for continuing NHS care, so god knows how bad you have to be to get this! We are now faced with the dilemma of what to do next, the options include obtaining 24-hour care privately because as a family we cannot help by covering the night time period because of lockdown restrictions.
Would it be preferable (and are we entitled to apply) to move onto direct payments, so that we would have to make the minimum contribution to the cost of the care?
He only has his pension to rely on and because he has an infection at the moment we are (quite understandably) told that a mental capacity assessment is not possible.
He has been known to social services since January and no attempt at any of the assessments have been made, and he has had 2 social workers! so I think it is virtually impossible for all the assessments to be carried out over a weekend period!! I have emailed the local authority stating that we believe the status quo of the current level of support remains in place until ALL assessments have been completed and a full care plan has been agreed upon. I don't know if we will be successful in this request but I think it's really unprofessional to do anything without being formally and fully risk assessed for both my Dad and his wife.
I can't actually believe this has happened, the hospital has said on more than one occasion that he has dementia, indeed he is currently taking Risperadol for his behaviour, additionally, we were also told by the hospital that he could not be discharged home as his medical needs were complex and he would need access to medical attention 24 hours a day.
But he has been allowed to decide to go home in line with his wishes, but how do they know that he is capable of deciding what is in his best interests if he has dementia, I think the problem was that after his first hospital stay he was transferred to a residential EMI home which was pretty awful, to be honest, I won't go into the numerous problems we encountered there but Dad was very unhappy and had some suicidal ideations regarding staying in there which he shared with his social worker. We are very happy he has not returned to this home and his wife is happy to have him home provided the current level of support is maintained, but in the event that it is refused we might have to contribute to his care and the current service have said it costs around £300/ day is this an average cost for the care being supplied, also any ideas of how we fund it would be appreciated.
Thank you.
I have made representation to his social worker about this but she is adamant that the service will not be extended past the date given (5 pm on Monday 29th) surprisingly we are told that he does not meet the criteria for continuing NHS care, so god knows how bad you have to be to get this! We are now faced with the dilemma of what to do next, the options include obtaining 24-hour care privately because as a family we cannot help by covering the night time period because of lockdown restrictions.
Would it be preferable (and are we entitled to apply) to move onto direct payments, so that we would have to make the minimum contribution to the cost of the care?
He only has his pension to rely on and because he has an infection at the moment we are (quite understandably) told that a mental capacity assessment is not possible.
He has been known to social services since January and no attempt at any of the assessments have been made, and he has had 2 social workers! so I think it is virtually impossible for all the assessments to be carried out over a weekend period!! I have emailed the local authority stating that we believe the status quo of the current level of support remains in place until ALL assessments have been completed and a full care plan has been agreed upon. I don't know if we will be successful in this request but I think it's really unprofessional to do anything without being formally and fully risk assessed for both my Dad and his wife.
I can't actually believe this has happened, the hospital has said on more than one occasion that he has dementia, indeed he is currently taking Risperadol for his behaviour, additionally, we were also told by the hospital that he could not be discharged home as his medical needs were complex and he would need access to medical attention 24 hours a day.
But he has been allowed to decide to go home in line with his wishes, but how do they know that he is capable of deciding what is in his best interests if he has dementia, I think the problem was that after his first hospital stay he was transferred to a residential EMI home which was pretty awful, to be honest, I won't go into the numerous problems we encountered there but Dad was very unhappy and had some suicidal ideations regarding staying in there which he shared with his social worker. We are very happy he has not returned to this home and his wife is happy to have him home provided the current level of support is maintained, but in the event that it is refused we might have to contribute to his care and the current service have said it costs around £300/ day is this an average cost for the care being supplied, also any ideas of how we fund it would be appreciated.
Thank you.
