Hello all, my first post, and what a wonderful life line this forum appears to be.
Mum has middle stage dementia, which, surprisingly has only been diagnosed recently following a 12 week hospital stay, where she has been well looked after. She is also registered blind.
The time has come for her discharge, and after very narrowly failing to secure continuing health care funding (it will be reviewed in three months apparently), we have to decide how to proceed. We are edging towards care at home ourself ( myself and my brother) with supplementary help through either an agency (very expensive - but I expect worth the cost) or young adult grandchildren who would deserve payment for their time.
We will receive direct payments apparently, and have selected this route as it would give us more flexiblility with timings of care visits etc.
However, mum's savings are well below the threshold, and the money paid to her as direct payments will only cover approximately four hours of care a day. Mum needs 24 hour care. My brother lives with mum (getting carers allowance) and will have to do the night shift (she is a very poor and restless sleeper) I work three days a week for a charity, which I love, but will reluctantly leave my job to do the day shifts (in an ideal world I would love to carry on working at least one day per week), and to be honest, I am worried about the prospect of doing 12 hour shifts - especially as I am married with a family, and the obvious impact on my weekend and family time. I was hoping that we could "buy" at least one day a week in a dementia club, but the fund will just not stretch to that, if we need to spend it on other care.
With this in mind, I want to make the direct payments fund stretch as far as possible!, which would mean not going through a care agency (regrettably) and recruiting some of the young adult grandchildren (one is a nurse, the other a caring young lady, who is sadly not very local, and has no transport!) They do not live at the same address as mum, so I gather that it is an option, but to be honest I am very daunted at the prospect of having to "recruit them" with all that entails (tax, NI, Insurance, pension enrolement, contracts ) etc
Your valuable advice please, have any of you received assistance in this regard? who can help me with all of this employment malarkey? Is there a charity or similar who can take the admin off my hands?
Sorry for the long post, I am somewhat drained! Any comments appreciated, and by the way, we are in south Herts.
Kind regards to all of you, I know that this forum will be so helpful!
Mum has middle stage dementia, which, surprisingly has only been diagnosed recently following a 12 week hospital stay, where she has been well looked after. She is also registered blind.
The time has come for her discharge, and after very narrowly failing to secure continuing health care funding (it will be reviewed in three months apparently), we have to decide how to proceed. We are edging towards care at home ourself ( myself and my brother) with supplementary help through either an agency (very expensive - but I expect worth the cost) or young adult grandchildren who would deserve payment for their time.
We will receive direct payments apparently, and have selected this route as it would give us more flexiblility with timings of care visits etc.
However, mum's savings are well below the threshold, and the money paid to her as direct payments will only cover approximately four hours of care a day. Mum needs 24 hour care. My brother lives with mum (getting carers allowance) and will have to do the night shift (she is a very poor and restless sleeper) I work three days a week for a charity, which I love, but will reluctantly leave my job to do the day shifts (in an ideal world I would love to carry on working at least one day per week), and to be honest, I am worried about the prospect of doing 12 hour shifts - especially as I am married with a family, and the obvious impact on my weekend and family time. I was hoping that we could "buy" at least one day a week in a dementia club, but the fund will just not stretch to that, if we need to spend it on other care.
With this in mind, I want to make the direct payments fund stretch as far as possible!, which would mean not going through a care agency (regrettably) and recruiting some of the young adult grandchildren (one is a nurse, the other a caring young lady, who is sadly not very local, and has no transport!) They do not live at the same address as mum, so I gather that it is an option, but to be honest I am very daunted at the prospect of having to "recruit them" with all that entails (tax, NI, Insurance, pension enrolement, contracts ) etc
Your valuable advice please, have any of you received assistance in this regard? who can help me with all of this employment malarkey? Is there a charity or similar who can take the admin off my hands?
Sorry for the long post, I am somewhat drained! Any comments appreciated, and by the way, we are in south Herts.
Kind regards to all of you, I know that this forum will be so helpful!