Finding a care home and self funding help!

[AlwaysHopeful]

Long story short is my mum has been in hospital since October 2023. She doesn’t have a formal diagnosis and they keep saying this can only be diagnosed in the community, but she has been deemed not to have mental capacity, has “complex mental health”, and “challenging behaviour”.

Social services are struggling to find an EMI placement for her due to the above. She keeps getting rejected by providers. So here’s the problem, I had a discussion with the hospital social worker last week and corrected her that my understanding was due to savings and property mum would be self funding initially at least. I’ve now had an email that if that is the case then I need to find her a care home placement and brokerage won’t do this, but if they’ve failed to find her a placement what makes them think I can?!

I simply do not have access to all the information such as social services assessments, mental health assessments, ward logs etc that would help inform a search. We don’t have a holistic understanding of her care needs. Which means that mum would likely end up in a wholly unsuitable placement even if I could find someone to take her.

It is also my understanding that regardless of whether mum is LA funded or self funded, social services will help with the search for a suitable placement especially when it’s a hospital discharge?

The last part is that I really do not have the time and resources to be able to find a place that will take mum which is going to be a labour intensive search of Social Services are failing. I’ve got a full time job, children to support, two parents with care needs in different locations, and no family support. Any advice? I’m actually so close to breaking point now

 

[Rosettastone57]

Welcome to the world of the self funder. I moved my mother in law to a care home from hospital with no involvement from social services whatsoever. My experience is that if you are self funding, then social services will just let you get on with it. I just found care homes with vacancies who were prepared to assess my mother in law in hospital. I do think in your circumstances social services have been unfair. Hopefully others will be along soon with better advice

 

[jugglingmum]

When my mum needed a care home she was self funding SS wouldn't help. Admittedly she was not in hospital which I think might be different rules.

Local to me care homes don't have waiting lists so I was trying to phone whilst working with one child still at home, needing significant support with A levels post covid. Mum had been given notice where she was.

I paid a private social worker found via Google to do the legwork. She spoke with mum's current care team, assessed her needs and identified suitable care homes and rang round them all for spaces and to see if they'd take mum, some covid restrictions still in place so they kept closing to viewings made it harder.

As mum was self funding, this came from mum's money, not mine.

Back in April 22 I paid £90 an hour, which compared with the weekly cost of a care home I thought was amazing value. I would have had to take annual leave to sort it out otherwise.

 

[Rayreadynow]

Long story short is my mum has been in hospital since October 2023. She doesn’t have a formal diagnosis and they keep saying this can only be diagnosed in the community, but she has been deemed not to have mental capacity, has “complex mental health”, and “challenging behaviour”.

Social services are struggling to find an EMI placement for her due to the above. She keeps getting rejected by providers. So here’s the problem, I had a discussion with the hospital social worker last week and corrected her that my understanding was due to savings and property mum would be self funding initially at least. I’ve now had an email that if that is the case then I need to find her a care home placement and brokerage won’t do this, but if they’ve failed to find her a placement what makes them think I can?!

I simply do not have access to all the information such as social services assessments, mental health assessments, ward logs etc that would help inform a search. We don’t have a holistic understanding of her care needs. Which means that mum would likely end up in a wholly unsuitable placement even if I could find someone to take her.

It is also my understanding that regardless of whether mum is LA funded or self funded, social services will help with the search for a suitable placement especially when it’s a hospital discharge?

The last part is that I really do not have the time and resources to be able to find a place that will take mum which is going to be a labour intensive search of Social Services are failing. I’ve got a full time job, children to support, two parents with care needs in different locations, and no family support. Any advice? I’m actually so close to breaking point now

The Local Authority have to aid you in finding a suitable home but it will be a separate department from social services. Request a copy of all documentation from the social services and tell them you cant find a place until you have the Care Needs Assessment. Use the Local Authority Care Brokerage, tell them what you need or refer them to the Care Needs Assessment done my the local council. The Social Worker will not get involved once they have done there bit.


So , Care Needs Assessment > Care Brokerage > Pick from their list and arrange a visit.

Sounds simple but its not.

 

[canary]

If you cant get SS or the hospital SW to play ball and have to do it yourself, Ive found this crowd pretty good

Care Homes & Nursing Homes UK – Care Home Reviews & Nursing Home Reviews

Guide to over 17,500 care homes, nursing homes and residential homes providing care in the UK, also the leading UK review site for care homes and nursing homes.

www.carehome.co.uk

Put in your location and filters (use dementia) and search for ones that specialise in challenging behaviour. Phone up the home, speak to the manager and be brutally honest about what your mum is like.

 

[Rosettastone57]

The British association of social workers independent directory might help with finding a social worker to do the leg work as @jugglingmum has suggested. I'm afraid that having money and assets may give you choices , but in this situation there is an assumption that we all know what to do or are prepared to find out.

 

[jugglingmum]

I initially used the website that @canary has mentioned but just didn't have time. I couldn't make longish calls at work in Jan (due to high work load in tge officecso no free rooms) but could in Feb and the independent social worker acheived more in a week than I had in a 6 weeks.

 

[Scarlet Lady]

May I just say that self-funding or not, and whether POA is held or not, ultimately the people with duty of care are Social Services. It’s utterly unacceptable for hospitals to try to discharge patients without a proper care plan or an appropriate place for them to go to. It is absolutely not down to untrained families to find appropriate care facilities at short notice when they don’t have sufficient knowledge of the PWDs needs. (All of which should be supplied by the hospital, but the NHS refuse to take responsibility once the D word is mentioned.)
When my aunt was discharged from hospital, I was given an hour to find a suitable place for her to go. At that time, I had no idea what her needs were going forward, other than that she couldn’t go home. The hospital social worker was terrified by the departmental consultant, a very arrogant young man who had no clue whatsoever other than freeing up beds. I ended up renouncing all responsibility for my aunt (something which broke my heart) and letting them know they had duty of care and they’d have to get on with it. This was after I’d had a screaming row with the consultant which was actually very satisfying in a strange way. There’s nothing like taking down a person mansplaining to you what hospitals are for when you’ve been on the planet about forty years longer than they have! The upshot was, of course, they couldn’t find a place either in the timescale they’d given me, so my aunt stayed put for another four days while they canvassed every care home in the county.
The outcome was relatively successful, although my aunt died five weeks later. The point is, don’t be browbeaten. It is absolutely not down to untrained families to take responsibility when the professionals refuse to. Stand your ground, even if it means you have to walk away. Not what you’d ever want to do, but it’s the only thing these people understand.

 

[Rayreadynow]

erm.....I empathise with that scenario. My PWD Home Care Agency gave 10 days notice to quit....Best interest meeting called on a Friday...conclusion from the meeting by the Social Worker was it was my responsibility to find a new Agency or a Care Home in the remaining 3 days as no one was working on a weekend and the contract finished on the following Thursday....I contact the Local Council Brokerage and they tell me they are not an emergency service and it takes at least 10 days to Broker a new provider. They set you up to fail.

 

[Alisongs]

Long story short is my mum has been in hospital since October 2023. She doesn’t have a formal diagnosis and they keep saying this can only be diagnosed in the community, but she has been deemed not to have mental capacity, has “complex mental health”, and “challenging behaviour”.

Social services are struggling to find an EMI placement for her due to the above. She keeps getting rejected by providers. So here’s the problem, I had a discussion with the hospital social worker last week and corrected her that my understanding was due to savings and property mum would be self funding initially at least. I’ve now had an email that if that is the case then I need to find her a care home placement and brokerage won’t do this, but if they’ve failed to find her a placement what makes them think I can?!

I simply do not have access to all the information such as social services assessments, mental health assessments, ward logs etc that would help inform a search. We don’t have a holistic understanding of her care needs. Which means that mum would likely end up in a wholly unsuitable placement even if I could find someone to take her.

It is also my understanding that regardless of whether mum is LA funded or self funded, social services will help with the search for a suitable placement especially when it’s a hospital discharge?

The last part is that I really do not have the time and resources to be able to find a place that will take mum which is going to be a labour intensive search of Social Services are failing. I’ve got a full time job, children to support, two parents with care needs in different locations, and no family support. Any advice? I’m actually so close to breaking point now

Hospital should have a Discharge Team that could help. Look on Hospital website. Discharge to Assess is a thing! D2A. And this can lead to permanent placement. MOST Discharge workers kind and clued up, try to find care in your postcode or nearby.
OR try Dementia Support Workers at hospital. Kind, clued up, can offer support to bewildered burnt out carers.
In my experience, hospital social workers just want the patient discharged on the basis of they're physically as good as it gets, and there's no more the hospital can do to alleviate chronic problems. Family are not legally obliged to care. An adult at risk is the legal responsibility of social services. Keep reiterating that.

Sorry just realised how old the original post is