Grandad, mental capacity and social services

[Shimmy]

Hello

My Grandad has dementia and Alzheimer’s.
These were diagnosed in the last few years.
He was in hospital in November after suffering a stroke for a month but has no recollection of that at all.
He was assessed as having ‘mental capacity’ because when he was asked if he wanted to go home, he said yes.. which to me is utter madness.
Since discharge and carers starting he is refusing to eat anything or drink anything, he won’t get up, he throws his tablets away but has no memory that they’re prescribed to him and he becomes agitated between carer visits by pacing around and repeating the same actions over and over. He is becoming aggressive and swearing both of which are not the person I know.
He’s losing weight and at some stage this will be too much for his body to cope with.

Any help and tips welcome, we’ve got nowhere with social services who are not helpful or interested, they don’t listen to anything the family say, we don’t have POA as he won’t sign one and it’s a council property he lives in. He’s recently remarked that he understands why people commit suicide and his wife of 67 years died last June but he doesn’t always remember and looks at her funeral booklet between 50 and 100 times a day.

Desperate grandchild x

 

[try again]

You need to escalate it to social services again and tell them he's a vulnerable adult and that he is losing weight.
How often do carers come in. They should be supervising the meds and preparing food even if it's mainly sandwiches.

 

[canary]

Have you told the GP about your concerns?
Is the care agency concerned about him? Perhaps the agency could escalate things
Get onto Social Services adult safeguarding to report your concerns - different departments dont always communicate very well with each other. Use the phrases that he is a "vulnerable adult" who is "at risk due to self neglect" and remind them that it is SS who has the "duty of care"

Its the squeaky wheel that gets the oil

 

[Shimmy]

You need to escalate it to social services again and tell them he's a vulnerable adult and that he is losing weight.
How often do carers come in. They should be supervising the meds and preparing food even if it's mainly sandwiches.

Yep. Done that on Friday. No response.
Nothing. The carers are aware and are trying and are apparently escalating it at their end as well. Whatever the carers prepare for him he throws into the garden for the birds or chucks it in the bin he doesn’t eat it.
The social worker claimed to have no working work phone number and no office number so I have an email address.
The Gp and their liaison are aware.
Literally no one is listening to his family.
He tells anyone in authority that he walks miles every day, that he does the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning etc none of which is true. He doesn’t because he can’t. He doesn’t change his clothes. He doesn’t shave any more and reckons his months worth of beard is just a couple of days - it’s like he has an answer or a script for any questions and if he doesn’t know the answer he just stops engaging.

 

[Kevinl]

Hello Shimmy and welcome to the site.
It's a shame people have to go through what so many on here have.
Could I suggest you put the country he's as what's available in the way of payments, costs, savings limits and a lot more varies whether he's living in Scotland, Wales, England or NI, we might be the United Kingdom but not when it comes to who has to pay for what, no good me saying what's available to him in England if he's covered by Scottish law, Welsh or NI regulations. Just which of the 4 countries so you get the best advice.
For whatever reason the 4 UK countries do things differently financing care.
K

 

[Shimmy]

Have you told the GP about your concerns?
Is the care agency concerned about him? Perhaps the agency could escalate things
Get onto Social Services adult safeguarding to report your concerns - different departments dont always communicate very well with each other. Use the phrases that he is a "vulnerable adult" who is "at risk due to self neglect" and remind them that it is SS who has the "duty of care"

Its the squeaky wheel that gets the oil

Did all this and more at a discharge meeting and it made no difference.
We’ve mentioned every risk under the sun and they’re not interested.
Our experience is that no one talks to one another so the departments never have the correct information
I don’t even get a response from his social worked
We’ve brought up the care act, mental capacity act and duty of care and I might as well talk to the wall.

 

[Shimmy]

Hello Shimmy and welcome to the site.
It's a shame people have to go through what so many on here have.
Could I suggest you put the country he's as what's available in the way of payments, costs, savings limits and a lot more varies whether he's living in Scotland, Wales, England or NI, we might be the United Kingdom but not when it comes to who has to pay for what, no good me saying what's available to him in England if he's covered by Scottish law, Welsh or NI regulations. Just which of the 4 countries so you get the best advice.
For whatever reason the 4 UK countries do things differently financing care.
K

England

I don’t know what else to do and I don’t understand the complete unwillingness of the council to do anything to help
They don’t even reply to emails

 

[Kevinl]

Earlier on today one of the site moderators posted a link for me (I'm hopeless at that) so Izzy the mod did it for me, shouldn't be difficult to find, it covers the regulations for England healthcare.
Worst case you threaten to walk away from the situation and remind them the state has a "duty of care" not you.
But I don't mind a game of being hardfaced with social services, but that's just me.
K

 

[canary]

Did all this and more at a discharge meeting and it made no difference.
We’ve mentioned every risk under the sun and they’re not interested.
Our experience is that no one talks to one another so the departments never have the correct information
I don’t even get a response from his social worked
We’ve brought up the care act, mental capacity act and duty of care and I might as well talk to the wall.

You are right - the different departments dont talk to each other. The hospital Social Work department is different from the ordinary SS department. Once your dad was admitted to hospital his previous SW would have closed the case and when they open another case it will probably be a different SW, so it is no use trying to contact his SW.

Yourve got to open a Safeguarding Case with the Safeguarding Department - then follow this up with putting it into writing with an email.
Get as many people as you can to contact SS about this - GP, care agency, concerned neighbours.....

The nuclear option is to take him back to A&E (although I realise that there are strikes at the moment and now is not a good time)

 

[Shimmy]

We have a mental capacity assessment tomorrow, but he is very good at ‘masking’ as giving stock yes or no answers when he doesn’t understand.
I’ve got video footage of his behaviour to prove what’s been going on (I feel awful about that but it started as a safety thing)

I don’t know how to exactly get across how bad this is to them.
He cannot do any of the things he claims he can and he’s in denial that anything is wrong. I really hope that the person who assessed him in hospital is not the one doing the assessment or if it is at least they can then see the decline

If they deem him to have capacity I genuinely don’t know what to do.