Financial Question

[Prudence9]

https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/support-us/donate/leave-a-gift-in-your-will/solicitors/

I've no idea if this will be of any use (or indeed if the link will work!), but would it be helpful to speak to a solicitor and sideline the GP option for a while?
No offence taken if this is a rubbish suggestion.

You are in such a difficult position but thank goodness you are looking out for her.

Best of luck!

 

[jenniferpa]

Does the GP know about the accusation? Because if he did, I would have thought he wouldn't want her on his list. I can see a lot of potential pit falls with being kicked off a list, not the least being would another doctor be willing to take her on. But if she's as non compliant as she seems, that might be an option.

 

[anonymouse]

The GP does not know about the accusation. I had hoped of course that her children would pursue the neglect issue (she has heart failure which has not been monitored at all by anyone since diagnosis in 2013) once it came to light, and that making a fuss about this might lead to being sacked by the current GP, which would have played into our hands, but they have chosen to ignore it.

 

[Pickles53]

It’s beginning to feel that there is nothing more you can do at this stage. There will at some point be a crisis, and all you can do is be prepared so that when it does happen you have the information to help you make the best decision at the time. If your SIL is aware of the potential risks of managing someone else’s money without official authorisation then she and the rest of the family will have to deal with whatever consequences there are.

It’s sometimes the hardest thing to sit on your hands. It is for me anyway, I like to plan ahead and be organised, but with dementia sometimes you just can’t do that.

 

[KAT365]

Further to the discussion above, when I needed to go down the Deputyship route the GP concerned (who was familiar with my PWD) refused to do the COP3 assessment but I found a national company online who would crucially also have acted as the certificate provider for LPA, if my PWD had been deemed as having sufficient capacity.
Good luck with persuading your husband and his siblings to act, it is better to sort out finances now rather than wait for a crisis to occur (our's was a fall and long spell in hospital) but it is their decision if they won't allow her children in law to help too.

 

[anonymouse]

I have reached the end of the road with this now, at least for the time being. Everyone has been very helpful, but I still can’t see a way in which I could get my MIL assessed because, as she has not been assessed, she will be deemed to have capacity and there doesn’t seem to be a way out of that loop.

My husband will not engage with this at all. As far as he is concerned, his mother is ‘warm and doesn’t smell’, so everything is OK for the time being. He actually said that he thinks at some point she will fall down the stairs and ‘that’ll be it’. He’s entitled to his view, but whether I want to be married to a man who is that callous, is another matter and I am seriously thinking about changing my own PoA to take his name off it, just in case.

Inevitably at some point, there will be a crisis. What I will do then, well frankly I’m unsure.


Thanks again.

 

[DeMartin]

With no disrespect to the males, ostriches head in sand comes to mind. I’m married to one, no concept of forward planning, doesn’t mean they don’t care, just that “someone will sort it out “. Usually us.
But in a total crisis the ostrich can look around and help. Mine did.

 

[DeMartin]

With no disrespect to the males, ostriches head in sand comes to mind. I’m married to one, no concept of forward planning, doesn’t mean they don’t care, just that “someone will sort it out “. Usually us.
But in a total crisis the ostrich can look around and help. Mine did.

Mind you I know a few female ostriches, sorry gentlemen.

 

[anonymouse]

And then everything changes again. A friend has suggested to my husband that he ought to get PoA in place so now he says he's going to ask the GP to come round and assess MIL, who seems to have deteriorated in the last few weeks. I'm still not sure how this is going to work. MIL signed a letter of authority some time ago to enable DH to speak to her GP, but if he asks for an assessment and she says no, then surely we're in the same position again? I'm guessing the GP won't do a referral to Memory Clinic or Community Mental Health on DH's say so.

 

[Shedrech]

hi anonymouse
apologies if I am misunderstanding
your husband is now going to actively organise POAs and an assessment by the GP
is your husband keeping these 2 issues separate
if you and he and family think your MIL has enough capacity to grasp in general terms that the POAs will give her Attorneys the legal authority to manage her affairs on her behalf and is able to sign, then get the POAs done asap - you can find them online - have a long standing friend as the certificate provider (not the GP if possible, many won't do this anyway)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ing-power-of-attorney-a-guide-web-version#A10
also have your MIL's GP check her over - having given them a full list of all your concerns - and ask for a referral - if your mum flatly refuses, that's for the GP to deal with - try not to get to that stage with how you word what is said to your MIL eg no closed questions, no explanations of why she is having a check-up, just a regular age thing
I'm just a little concerned that if the GP even begins to suggest that your MIL no longer has capacity, that will scupper the POAs

 

[anonymouse]

In my view, the two issues are inevitably connected. Given my MIL's mental state, it would appear to me to be essential to have a capacity assessment. This may well , as you put it, scupper the PoAs, but I would expect that. She is beyond being able to answer a yes/no question, she is by turns paranoid, delusional, disinhibited and so it goes on. She is unable to remember basic facts about her own life or to recognise me (her DIL) in person or one of her own children when he phones. She can no longer make her own phone calls and is frightened and distressed by incoming calls. She also says she is worried and distressed by events that are simply not happening. Her decline started three years ago and has been allowed to take its course.

While I can see the advantage of pushing a PoA through if you can 'get away with it', my MIL is nearly 90 and has been housebound for three years. Her social contacts have dwindled to immediate family only, so we would need a certificate provider with professional skills anyway and that means the GP or a properly qualified member of his staff.

Given her attitude generally and specifically her attitude to her GP, I would expect her to refuse to see him anyway.

A friend of mine suggested that deputyship might be the way to go, but presumably for this we have to have an assessment anyway and if she refuses ...

I'm still hoping for something that will get us of this loop.

 

[anonymouse]

Sadly, MIL sees no need to go for PoA as she has given SIL her debit card to use. *bangs head on wall*

 

[anonymouse]

Things have now moved on. The appointment for assessment finally came through, five months after the original conversation in the hospital. MIL has been assessed and we have been told that she definitely has a form of dementia. We're waiting for an appointment for a brain scan, wich will tell us stage and type.

BIL and SIL are still in complete denial and DH is struggling with it, but understands what he needs to do. The nurse who assessed MIL said we should get PoA as soon as possible. DH now has the forms and is trying to find someone to be certificate provider. It is possible that a friend of MIL's might do it, but MIL cannot tell him the friend's phone number. However, MIL does not understand what it is and is still saying 'no', and both BIL and SIL are reluctant to be attorneys, so it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

In her assessment, MIL was unable to complete any of the drawing tasks or to write a coherent sentence. It also seems that, although she appears to be reading as much as she ever did, she retains nothing, so we think her dementia may be quite far advanced.

 

[Spamar]

Hmm, OH used to work out a pithy saying or an apt sentence. When he asked the assessor one day if she like it, she said she hadn’t read it! OH was furious and she was wrong on so many counts!