Mental Capacity Test

[Suzie G]

How do we get a Mental Capacity Test for my 89 yr old MIL? She was diagnosed by the Memory Clinic 2 years ago.

SS are not interested, she has no Social Worker, no support other than from family, has not had a Needs Assessment - all because she's a self funder. When we asked SS for a Needs Assessment they said it could take 6 months under current circumstances.
Yes, this gives us much more choice re care packages etc, but we don't know where to get help from now that she's alone at home and - we feel - at serious risk.
Having been through this with my own mum, I believe my MIL has lost all capacity and is at risk, especially at night. If she refuses to go into a Care Home, what can we do? She's on her own now, FIL just gone into a nursing home for palliative care. We're doing what we can but we're worried sick.
We're waiting for the POA stuff to come back from the COP. Can we act in the meantime?
Will the GP help or do we need to go back to the Memory Clinic?

 

[karaokePete]

Hello @Suzie G

When I wanted a referral to SS it was my GP that started the ball rolling.

 

[Weasell]

Definitely get in touch with the GP.
Are you aware you can employ an independent social worker?

 

[Suzie G]

We think her GP is visiting later today. He's been brilliant with my FIL getting him into a Nursing Home. He really goes the extra mile, so my OH will chat to him later today hopefully. Thanks.

I didn't know you can employ an independent social worker, no. That might be an avenue to explore, so thank you.

 

[canary]

Everybody is eligible for a needs assessment, whether they are self-funding, or not - but it might take a while to sort out.

In the meantime, speak to your GP, you can arrange for an independant SW id you wish and - while you are waiting for all this - you can get in contact with a care agency direct and arrange for carers to come in and help the family. It is possible that you may find this sufficient anyway.

 

[Jaded'n'faded]

You could find her a care home yourselves if she is agreeable but if she refuses it all becomes very tricky. You would then have to get SS involved to do a Needs Assessment, which as you say could mean a 6 month wait. (Tell them it is urgent and your MIL is a vulnerable adult at risk - that will help expedite things.)

If they do the assessment and decide she still has some capacity to decide where she lives, you won't be able to move her though you can certainly arrange for carers to go in several times a day. But she may refuse that too!. At this point it becomes a case of waiting for a crisis. SS will only insist she moves to a CH after deciding she no longer has capacity, which is incredibly hard to prove when the person just insists they want to stay at home, even if they're doing all sorts of bizarre and dangerous things.

So it may help to get an independent social worker to put the case to SS. Keep a diary of everything that happens and certainly get your good GP on board. Telling SS that the GP thinks she should be in a CH would be a big help.

 

[Banjomansmate]

With reference to your last sentence @Jaded'n'faded , one of The Banjoman’s Social workers took great pleasure in informing me that it made no difference what the GP said, they (the Social workers) made the decision as to whether or not the PWD would be eligible to go into residential care.

 

[Suzie G]

Thanks to all who replied. It's appreciated. Fingers crossed she will agree it's for the best, but I'm not holding my breath....

 

[Sarasa]

Hi @Suzie G, .
I'm wondering if you could persuade your mother in law to go into a home for a bit of respite either because the GP says she needs a bit of a rest or because there is something in her house that needs fixing. I'm afraid I got very good at what we call 'love lies' round here rather than telling mum the truth that she would never have accepted.
Mum wanted to move from her flat because of her neighbours. They weren't the problem, mum's dementia was. However we used that as an opportunity to start the process of moving her nearer my brother. He thought she'd be OK in extra care sheltered accommodation. I didn't think so, but as she liked the place and was agreeable to the move I went along with it. By the time her flat had a buyer my brother was seriously ill so moving near him wasn't a good idea, and mum was starting to be a danger to herself and to others, and needed to be somewhere with twenty-four hour care. I moved mum to a care home near me instead, telling her it was a temporary move till the flat she wanted was available. Mum kept on wanting to leave, so the home applied for a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding order (DoLS). If the psychiatrist and social worker had decided mum had capacity she could have gone back to her flat, which was under offer but not yet sold. It didn't occur to me that if she'd been deemed to have capacity she could have returned to her flat. If that had happened I was going to step back from trying to keep her safe, something that was becoming impossible.
If you can persuade your MiL to move that would be for the best. My husband felt I should have waited for a crisis, but I'm so glad I didn't. Yes mum was unhappy at first but I'd rather she was unhappy than in hospital or worse.

 

[Jaded'n'faded]

With reference to your last sentence @Jaded'n'faded , one of The Banjoman’s Social workers took great pleasure in informing me that it made no difference what the GP said, they (the Social workers) made the decision as to whether or not the PWD would be eligible to go into residential care.

That's awful, isn't it?

I moved mum to a CH and she needed a DoLS because she kept trying to escape. The social worker who got involved was making noises about her being better in 'a little flat' or something similar. I was horrified because she was actually really bad. But the deterioration had happened suddenly after a fall - before that she'd shown increasing signs of dementia for about 10 years but it had only been a real concern in the year preceding the fall. So mum was undiagnosed when I moved her.

A temporary DoLS was granted pending a further scan (she'd had a few in hospital after the fall) and diagnosis and a consultant visited her then later spoke to me at length on the phone. He told me that mum had started well with their conversation but it soon became very clear she hadn't a clue where she was or what was going on. She was still very articulate and convincing at that stage but the consultant could clearly see beyond this. He recommended she stay there. I told him I was getting grief from the SW who was still suggesting mum could live elsewhere and he was very scathing, saying mum was not going to get any better! He confirmed that SS do have the final say but told me it would be a brave SW who went against the advice of a consultant and that if the SW continued to say otherwise I should refer them to him.

As it turned out, by the time the DoLS was due to be renewed, the SW 'gave in' and agreed mum should stay where she was, due to the diagnosis of mixed dementia. But I did have to fight - they wouldn't even let me be mum's Relevant Person's Representative because I wanted mum to stay in the CH and mum apparently didn't. (So they said.) So they appointed an advocate who visited a few times and asked mum a lot of leading questions such as, 'Wouldn't you rather be in your own place than here? Would you like to go back home?' (I know this because one of the carers was present and told me about it.) The truth was that mum didn't know where she was. It was This Place or The Other Place, a boarding house, a cruise ship and even one time the Orient Express. And mum was very suggestible too. You could have said, 'Would you like to live at the Ritz/on the moon?' and she woud have agreed if she liked you. And she had absolutely no recollection of the home she'd lived in for the previous 15 years.

Not a great experience.

 

[Rosettastone57]

How do we get a Mental Capacity Test for my 89 yr old MIL? She was diagnosed by the Memory Clinic 2 years ago.

SS are not interested, she has no Social Worker, no support other than from family, has not had a Needs Assessment - all because she's a self funder. When we asked SS for a Needs Assessment they said it could take 6 months under current circumstances.
Yes, this gives us much more choice re care packages etc, but we don't know where to get help from now that she's alone at home and - we feel - at serious risk.
Having been through this with my own mum, I believe my MIL has lost all capacity and is at risk, especially at night. If she refuses to go into a Care Home, what can we do? She's on her own now, FIL just gone into a nursing home for palliative care. We're doing what we can but we're worried sick.
We're waiting for the POA stuff to come back from the COP. Can we act in the meantime?
Will the GP help or do we need to go back to the Memory Clinic?

We were in a similar situation with my mother in law a couple of years ago. She lived at home with carers visits but she was a high falls risk with faecal incontinence. She refused point blank to go into care. In fact she refused to even leave her home not even to visit her family. My husband was not prepared to dupe her, so we waited for a crisis. Eventually she went into hospital and we started the arrangement to move her to care . We had POA so we organised a care home quickly. She was self funding and never involved social services at any point