Live-In Care/standalone cash card?

[shubb]

Does anyone have any thoughts about where I could search for live-in care?

Mum is very able physically. She's well and can dress/look after herself. She eats microwave meals and salads but she can hardly verbalise (severe Receptive Dysphasia). She cannot problem solve and has huge difficulties understanding what is being asked of her because of severe confusion. She loses keys, glasses, bus pass (she only uses that for one destination) and sometimes leaves her doors open when she goes out or even when she's in.

She has started to return to sender all her post after scribbling out the address (I don't know why) so I am missing one off medical appointments and tax details (because hospitals don't always forward me copies). She buys random stuff and too much stuff.

She has Dementia but there are symptoms crossover so she is having further tests at John Radcliffe, Oxford to try and pinpoint the cause. She is only 73, diagnosed a year ago and has deteriorated rapidly. I am about to take over her bank account and give her some sort of standalone card like Revolut or GoHenry??? that I can top up for her because she is very vulnerable to exploitation now and wastes so much money on stuff she then chucks in the bin (unless I fish it out and take it back) This is why she needs more than daily Carers who literally check her fridge, talk to her and are an extra pair of eyes for me.

I have looked at live-in agencies but don't feel Mum needs someone like that quite yet (or that expensive) so I am thinking about a sort of independent medically aware au-pair for company? Someone who is perhaps a bit older (50s/60s) ex nurse sort of person who can just keep an eye on all these issues. I live 50miles away and do visit at least once every week but that's not enough because things goes wrong constantly and Mum doesn't realise. She has great neighbours but I don't like to load this onto them too much. Any ideas?

 

[Rosettastone57]

Does anyone have any thoughts about where I could search for live-in care?

Mum is very able physically. She's well and can dress/look after herself. She eats microwave meals and salads but she can hardly verbalise (severe Receptive Dysphasia). She cannot problem solve and has huge difficulties understanding what is being asked of her because of severe confusion. She loses keys, glasses, bus pass (she only uses that for one destination) and sometimes leaves her doors open when she goes out or even when she's in.

She has started to return to sender all her post after scribbling out the address (I don't know why) so I am missing one off medical appointments and tax details (because hospitals don't always forward me copies). She buys random stuff and too much stuff.

She has Dementia but there are symptoms crossover so she is having further tests at John Radcliffe, Oxford to try and pinpoint the cause. She is only 73, diagnosed a year ago and has deteriorated rapidly. I am about to take over her bank account and give her some sort of standalone card like Revolut or GoHenry??? that I can top up for her because she is very vulnerable to exploitation now and wastes so much money on stuff she then chucks in the bin (unless I fish it out and take it back) This is why she needs more than daily Carers who literally check her fridge, talk to her and are an extra pair of eyes for me.

I have looked at live-in agencies but don't feel Mum needs someone like that quite yet (or that expensive) so I am thinking about a sort of independent medically aware au-pair for company? Someone who is perhaps a bit older (50s/60s) ex nurse sort of person who can just keep an eye on all these issues. I live 50miles away and do visit at least once every week but that's not enough because things goes wrong constantly and Mum doesn't realise. She has great neighbours but I don't like to load this onto them too much. Any ideas?

I am sure that others will be along shortly to give you better advice but my first thought from reading your post is do you have lasting power of attorney for finances? Otherwise how do you propose to take over your mother's account. Or pay for a live in carer? I have no experience as a live-in carer or of the top-up cards you are mentioning so hopefully other members will be able to point you in the right direction.

In addition, I might add,that if you have POA you can get her post redirected to avoid this losing letters about appointments

 

[shubb]

I am sure that others will be along shortly to give you better advice but my first thought from reading your post is do you have lasting power of attorney for finances? Otherwise how do you propose to take over your mother's account. Or pay for a live in carer? I have no experience as a live-in carer or of the top-up cards you are mentioning so hopefully other members will be able to point you in the right direction.

In addition, I might add,that if you have POA you can get her post redirected to avoid this losing letters about appointments

Hello. Yes I have POA for both health and finance so that's sorted and yes good idea about the post. I am on the verge of doing that.

 

[jugglingmum]

You can normally only redirect post for a maximum of 2 years.

Not sure if you can then begin again with another redirection or not (eg from your mum's to a friends house)

given the situation you are in I think you do need to redirect now.

Top up cards would work I think, but the other option so that your mum keeps the same bank card is to set up a savings account and only put enough in her current account for her tuse - with on line banking as POA you would be able to monitor her spending.

The other trick often posted on her is to scratch off the last 3 digits on the back of the card and that way she can't authorise spending over the phone.

 

[Sirena]

@jugglingmum you can now redirect post for four years.

In terms of the live in carer, I think you need to work out what you will be asking of them. You say your mother is deteriorating, and some of her behaviour sounds challenging, so it would need someone who understands dementia and is experienced in dealing with the behaviours. It's a big responsibility, and there would need to be provision for illness/time off. If you went through an agency they would have staff who could share the work.

 

[shubb]

You can normally only redirect post for a maximum of 2 years.

Not sure if you can then begin again with another redirection or not (eg from your mum's to a friends house)

given the situation you are in I think you do need to redirect now.

Top up cards would work I think, but the other option so that your mum keeps the same bank card is to set up a savings account and only put enough in her current account for her tuse - with on line banking as POA you would be able to monitor her spending.

The other trick often posted on her is to scratch off the last 3 digits on the back of the card and that way she can't authorise spending over the phone.

Hello. That's a good idea about the savings account but the bank will take away complete access to her account once I take over from third party access, which is what I have now. I doubt that they will let me open a new account on her behalf so that's the problem there. Scratching off the 3 digits I hadn't thought of but she can hardly speak so never uses the phone but she might still be able to use the card online so a good safeguard against that.

 

[jugglingmum]

When I went to the bank I told them my mum still had capacity and she still uses a chequebook to pay for her lunches at her sheltered extra care flat.

 

[canary]

If you have POA for finance then you can certainly open accounts for her - that is what the POA is for!
The bank will not necessarily take away your mums access to accounts if you take over, you can talk to the bank manager and explain the situation, so they will limit the amount your mum has access to.

 

[shubb]

@jugglingmum you can now redirect post for four years.

In terms of the live in carer, I think you need to work out what you will be asking of them. You say your mother is deteriorating, and some of her behaviour sounds challenging, so it would need someone who understands dementia and is experienced in dealing with the behaviours. It's a big responsibility, and there would need to be provision for illness/time off. If you went through an agency they would have staff who could share the work.

Hi and thank you for that feedback. I hadn't thought that through. I have indeed said that she is deteriorating so yes I do need someone who can adapt to her illness and is insured to live with Mum. Then if Mum suddenly decides that she doesn't want anyone living with her, an agency would be used to that type of reaction too wouldn't they.

 

[shubb]

If you have POA for finance then you can certainly open accounts for her - that is what the POA is for!
The bank will not necessarily take away your mums access to accounts if you take over, you can talk to the bank manager and explain the situation, so they will limit the amount your mum has access to.

Maybe it's just Lloyds but I have third party access now which means we share cards but I can't go online for her. Completely incapacitated with a view to finances means that they will take away all her access. I have already been through this with them. It's been very frustrating in this middle ground

 

[canary]

We are with Lloyds. Did you talk to the bank manager? My experience is that people on the desk do not know that much about POA.

 

[shubb]

When I went to the bank I told them my mum still had capacity and she still uses a chequebook to pay for her lunches at her sheltered extra care flat.

Mum is less able to cope with her money other than buying basics with cash and writing the occasional cheque. Her Doctor has now given me a formal letter stating this. She could so easliy be exploited because she is so obliging if people seem to be helping her.

 

[jugglingmum]

I said she still had capacity so that she could retain the chequebook, she had forgotten her PIN and wasn't capable of anything else. She couldn't go anywhere without me - so it wasn't the full truth but meant she was kept on the account.

One bank/building society (she has multiple accounts) said they would close her ISAs is she had lost capacity, so I have no intention of telling them is she does, as far as I am aware legally she can operate ISAs and the bank are wrong.

I always arranged to see the POA person when speaking to each bank.

 

[shubb]

We are with Lloyds. Did you talk to the bank manager? My experience is that people on the desk do not know that much about POA.

I did talk to the branch Manager but it wouldn't hurt to get a second opinion however I think that any business would not be keen to give someone access to money who is so vulnerable and unable to understand what they are saying to her or verbalise her wishes. These Revolut cards are quite good if I can have one in her name that is. There's a kids version called GoHenry where you pay money into an account but you control the money going in and can see all that is going out. I also think that you can use it in a cashpoint. I need to look into this more though

 

[shubb]

I said she still had capacity so that she could retain the chequebook, she had forgotten her PIN and wasn't capable of anything else. She couldn't go anywhere without me - so it wasn't the full truth but meant she was kept on the account.

One bank/building society (she has multiple accounts) said they would close her ISAs is she had lost capacity, so I have no intention of telling them is she does, as far as I am aware legally she can operate ISAs and the bank are wrong.

I always arranged to see the POA person when speaking to each bank.

Often if I say POA anywhere I am given a dedicated person! Yes I also agree that you have to be economical with the truth too. You are the only one who really knows your Mum/Dad. The Lloyds bloke I saw did bend the rules by letting me have access to Mums online banking because he understood the problem but he told me how to bypass the bank paperwork because it literally didn't let him go to the next page if he tried to override it

 

[jugglingmum]

I didn't take my mum with me to the bank so they didn't know what she could or couldn't do, so I said she had capacity. I suspect if they had seen her in person they would have thought she didn't.

If you are to replace bank card with a prepaid card this won't matter. You could buy the prepaid card in your name and let her use it (I don't know the ones you've mentioned but know prepaid cards exist - but not used them - just have had clients who have them - as in some cultures credit cards are unacceptable)

 

[Rosettastone57]

Mum is less able to cope with her money other than buying basics with cash and writing the occasional cheque. Her Doctor has now given me a formal letter stating this. She could so easliy be exploited because she is so obliging if people seem to be helping her.

Once my mother-in-law started down this road of not managing her finances and my husband and I have power of attorney we completely took over her accounts. Her name remained on the account however ,but to all intents and purposes, she could manage nothing herself . She had no access to bank cards, credit cards we took them away from her she had no access to a cheque book and little access to cash . Admittedly she rarely went out and with carers coming in ,any payments that were required to the care agency ,the gardener the podiatrist, we paid via online banking. We went paperless with bank statements to prevent her getting aggressive and agitated and also to prevent them getting lost before we had everything redirected. To be frank we could not trust my mother-in-law with any money whatsoever and it came to the point where her needs outweighed what she wanted. She was given a small float of cash if the carers needed to get anything extra. The maximum was £10 no more which was partly to prevent her making accusations of stealing against the care agency staff. Unfortunately her condition eventually deteriorated so much that she could not even recognise a pound coin

 

[shubb]

I didn't take my mum with me to the bank so they didn't know what she could or couldn't do, so I said she had capacity. I suspect if they had seen her in person they would have thought she didn't.

If you are to replace bank card with a prepaid card this won't matter. You could buy the prepaid card in your name and let her use it (I don't know the ones you've mentioned but know prepaid cards exist - but not used them - just have had clients who have them - as in some cultures credit cards are unacceptable)

Well as her purchases are not very sophisticated anymore, that shouldn't be a problem. Trouble is that Lloyds won't see me without Mum because of the third party access I have. I have been to three branches and they have all said the same. How did you get away with that? Thank you for your help today. It's a nightmare all this GDPR. Mum's Dementia nurse at her surgery had to fight to get letters copied to me despite the POA because her surgery had a blanket ban on all correspondence being copied elsewhere. I still have access to her notes though. It's hard enough being in this situation without having to fight everywhere else too.

 

[shubb]

Once my mother-in-law started down this road of not managing her finances and my husband and I have power of attorney we completely took over her accounts. Her name remained on the account however ,but to all intents and purposes, she could manage nothing herself . She had no access to bank cards, credit cards we took them away from her she had no access to a cheque book and no access to cash . Admittedly she rarely went out and with carers coming in ,any payments that were required to the care agency ,the gardener the podiatrist, we paid via online banking. We went paperless with bank statements to prevent her getting aggressive and agitated and also to prevent them getting lost before we had everything redirected. To be frank we could not trust my mother-in-law with any money whatsoever and it came to the point where her needs outweighed what she wanted. She was given a small float of cash if the carers needed to get anything extra. The maximum was £10 no more which was partly to prevent her making accusations of stealing against the care agency staff. Unfortunately her condition eventually deteriorated so much that she could not even recognise a pound coin

Im sorry for you. Very difficult. I want to try and introduce another way of paying for things in case we get to that stage and she will not accept anything else. You just don't know how bad it's going to get.

 

[Rosettastone57]

Well as her purchases are not very sophisticated anymore, that shouldn't be a problem. Trouble is that Lloyds won't see me without Mum because of the third party access I have. I have been to three branches and they have all said the same. How did you get away with that? Thank you for your help today. It's a nightmare all this GDPR. Mum's Dementia nurse at her surgery had to fight to get letters copied to me despite the POA because her surgery had a blanket ban on all correspondence being copied elsewhere. I still have access to her notes though. It's hard enough being in this situation without having to fight everywhere else too.

I'm sorry I don't understand . If you have lasting power of attorney for finances and it is registered with OPG and a certified copy has been prepared then I don't see why the bank needs to have your mum with you to have it registered with and implemented. My mother-in-law's account was at Barclays . All we had to do was taking ID for myself ,my husband who also had power of attorney with me jointly and severally. ID for my mother-in-law and it was all set up complete with online banking at no time did any member of staff at Barclays ask to see anything else or speak to my mother-in-law

As to the records regarding your mum's surgery having power of attorney for health and welfare does not as far as I'm aware give you access to your mother's records