I realise that what I am about to say may upset some people, but, Dear Burf, I have long followed your struggles to achieve an acceptable quality of care for your Dad and they mirror so many of the struggles that we also faced.
So, I tread now gently on eggshells, for the simple reason that I have no wish to offend.
Any care home that accepts any person with dementia can only do so legally if they have declared within their registration via CSCI that they have sufficient/suitable/appropriate facilities and staffing levels and adequately trained staff to provide the level of care that any person with dementia needs. And that means today, and tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. They are not allowed to pick and choose only the relatively easy-to-handle residents. Dementia is dementia, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Yes, it changes; yes, it most often worsens; yes, it is unlikely to improve unless your surname is Saunders and you have connections with Guinness~!!~
Otherwise the care home should not accept any single person with dementia, neither for assessment, nor as a resident. Which leads me to question why your SW deemed it acceptable for this particular care home to be ‘used’ for the assessment process. Regardless of whether it is just a couple of miles up the road from you, which must be a plus surely, in the life and care of any person who cares, or who needs care. It would be the best thing for your Dad and for you, and indirectly (or directly, even) for your family if your Dad were to be living happily and comfortably closer to those who genuinely care about him, as you so obviously do.
That ‘comfort factor’ cannot be achieved overnight, nor within 2 weeks of assessment.
The good things in life take time, and they take even more time in the world of dementia.
It is a well-known fact that dementia is most often accompanied by the need (within the person with dementia) to engage in ‘unusual, unpredictable behaviour patterns, and uncharted-until-now territory’, uncharted perhaps within that particular person with dementia and their life-experience so far. How many times does any professional need to be told that a change of situation/circumstances/environment/face-at-the-door-carer/medication/ and so on causes ‘more confusion’ and more manifestation of that confusion? That does not disappear overnight.
Nor does the ability to cope with him/her/them appear overnight, within the care home staff.
As we say again and again and again, every single person with dementia may well be very very different from any other single person with dementia.
The question that I would ask of your SW and especially of the care home manager: is this the first time that a person with dementia has ever been placed for assessment in this particular care home? Is this the first time that a person with dementia has come to live in this particular care home? And if the answer is yes, then why was it accepted as appropriate for your Dad? And more importantly, is this care home registered to accept residents with dementia? Or are they planning to apply for a variation to their registration which would allow them to declare that they are able to cope with the demands of dementia.
I apologise, Burf, for this post of mine, but I feel very strongly about the situation you now find yourself in. I can do nothing to change that for you, or to help you directly with it, but I would merely wish you to know that it scratches more of my skin than you can possibly know or be asked to understand.
So I wish you well. Do not put up with the nonsense that is being dumped on you, hard as I know that will be, and much as I understand what you have been going through and still are going through.
I truly wish you well, and send my own personal energies your way, in the hope that you can achieve what your Dad needs and deserves.
.
So, I tread now gently on eggshells, for the simple reason that I have no wish to offend.
Any care home that accepts any person with dementia can only do so legally if they have declared within their registration via CSCI that they have sufficient/suitable/appropriate facilities and staffing levels and adequately trained staff to provide the level of care that any person with dementia needs. And that means today, and tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. They are not allowed to pick and choose only the relatively easy-to-handle residents. Dementia is dementia, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Yes, it changes; yes, it most often worsens; yes, it is unlikely to improve unless your surname is Saunders and you have connections with Guinness~!!~
Otherwise the care home should not accept any single person with dementia, neither for assessment, nor as a resident. Which leads me to question why your SW deemed it acceptable for this particular care home to be ‘used’ for the assessment process. Regardless of whether it is just a couple of miles up the road from you, which must be a plus surely, in the life and care of any person who cares, or who needs care. It would be the best thing for your Dad and for you, and indirectly (or directly, even) for your family if your Dad were to be living happily and comfortably closer to those who genuinely care about him, as you so obviously do.
That ‘comfort factor’ cannot be achieved overnight, nor within 2 weeks of assessment.
The good things in life take time, and they take even more time in the world of dementia.
It is a well-known fact that dementia is most often accompanied by the need (within the person with dementia) to engage in ‘unusual, unpredictable behaviour patterns, and uncharted-until-now territory’, uncharted perhaps within that particular person with dementia and their life-experience so far. How many times does any professional need to be told that a change of situation/circumstances/environment/face-at-the-door-carer/medication/ and so on causes ‘more confusion’ and more manifestation of that confusion? That does not disappear overnight.
Nor does the ability to cope with him/her/them appear overnight, within the care home staff.
As we say again and again and again, every single person with dementia may well be very very different from any other single person with dementia.
The question that I would ask of your SW and especially of the care home manager: is this the first time that a person with dementia has ever been placed for assessment in this particular care home? Is this the first time that a person with dementia has come to live in this particular care home? And if the answer is yes, then why was it accepted as appropriate for your Dad? And more importantly, is this care home registered to accept residents with dementia? Or are they planning to apply for a variation to their registration which would allow them to declare that they are able to cope with the demands of dementia.
I apologise, Burf, for this post of mine, but I feel very strongly about the situation you now find yourself in. I can do nothing to change that for you, or to help you directly with it, but I would merely wish you to know that it scratches more of my skin than you can possibly know or be asked to understand.
So I wish you well. Do not put up with the nonsense that is being dumped on you, hard as I know that will be, and much as I understand what you have been going through and still are going through.
I truly wish you well, and send my own personal energies your way, in the hope that you can achieve what your Dad needs and deserves.
.