Are there any national guidelines telling local authorities what criteria they should use to judge whether someone requires 24 hour care? Mum is 91 and has dementia and, in the opinion of everyone except social services, she requires someone with her all the time. For the purposes of her own contribution to her social service funded care package, the local authority argues that mum does not require 24 hour care and therefore expects mum to pay towards the five hours per day of care funded by her local authority (and to self-fund the other 19 hours per day). I have asked the local authority what criteria they use to judge whether someone requires 24 hour care but I cannot get any response. Are there any national guidelines on this?