@Elle3, I have just read from the beginning of your thread. You did and have done the right thing in trying to find residential care for your Dad. From what you said on your first post on this thread, he was in terrible danger and at risk constantly. Anything could have happened had he remained alone at home and you would have blamed yourself then had it done so for not doing something sooner. You have made the best decision in a bad situation where there are no concrete answers or cures. None of this is your fault. None of it. Your Dad is ill and it is the illness and your (and others) concern for his safety that has prompted all the choices you have made and all of them have been right. Because those choices have not yet worked only means that another, different choice has to be made, not that the original decision was wrong. The feeling of losing your Dad is not because he is in that care home or any care home, it is the dementia causing that loss of the person he was. It is a heart-rending grief to feel. Ambiguous grief. I have not read back through any previous posts, but if you haven't yet read about it, either googling Ambiguous and Anticipatory Grief or looking at the Alzheimer's Society's fact sheet about Grief, Loss and Bereavement may help a little. I have pasted the link at the end of my post.
My Mum went in to emergency respite for 3 weeks last year. Within 24 hours she had deteriorated in to someone that I no longer recognised. The nursing home was o.k., although they relied heavily on drugs for the residents and they could not cope with her because she was awake all night and so immediately prescribed sedatives She didn't wander like your Dad as such but would become very distressed. It was quite a clinical but very efficient place. At that point, I needed to make the decision for my own Mum to be in permanent residential care as I was too exhausted then to carry on. Long story short, I brought Mum home for another 6 months instead. She could never have stayed where she was. At the end of those 6 months I was so unwell as to be unable to continue caring for her at home and had to find a permanent placement. My Mum was not self-funding and so there were no options available other than those offered by SS at their funding levels and they couldn't find her a suitable place, although for different reasons to your Dad. I am explaining all this because Mum is now somewhere that suits her, an EMI registered nursing home that is homely and suits her that came up at the last minute when I thought all was lost. The building itself is run down and shabby in parts as it is an old converted house, not modern like the previous home had been, but it suits her and how she has lived her life. The staff are friendly. Mum is not on any drugs for the dementia. She is doing o.k. It has not solved Mum's dementia, nothing can, but she is safe and warm and content at times. The agony of trying to find her somewhere and the worry and anxiety - like you, I wished I could just run away. I think most of us on TP have felt like that at some point. Places come up literally overnight in care homes, sadly, that is the nature of them, often someone has to die for a place to become available for someone else. Somewhere suitable may well come up at any point and with your SW's help and a correct assessment of his needs, he may well be o.k. elsewhere, given time to settle. Please do not blame yourself any more for any of what is happening to your Dad. He is so lucky to have you and to be so loved by you. You can not make him well. You can not stop the disease progressing. You can only do your best and you are doing that. Here is the link I mentioned earlier:-
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/download/downloads/id/1796/factsheet_grief_loss_and_bereavement.pdf