@alang
I can't believe I haven't found your thread before! I've just read back to the beginning and your situation reminds me so much of mine when mum was at home in her flat (she has been in a care home for the last three years). Like you until recently, I was round at her flat pretty much every day, for most if the day, in addition to her having four care visits a day. I was beyond desperate. Mum wasn't eating or drinking enough, wouldn't wash ior change her clothes, was doubly incontinent every day and had no awareness of it. Three times in the space if as many months she was taken to A & E following falls and dehydration. Three times she was sent home as being able to manage....
No social worker ever suggested that I take a step back, and the CPNs didn't do home visits. The GP declared himself 'at a loss as to how social services make their decisions'. I wrote lengthy emails to them detailing mum's plight, to no avail.
Sometimes it takes just one or two professionals to finally understand the situation, and be willing to put their heads above the parapet. My first saviour was a hospital OT, who on mum's fourth A & E trip, asked her a follow up question to whether she'd like to go home (to which of course she always said yes). Quite simply, she established that mum wasn't talking about her flat, but somewhere from her past, probably her childhood home. She then asked her 'whether she'd like her daughter to speak for her'. Mum said yes, and bingo, the OT recorded 'Mrs B is mentally unable to make decisions about future care and wishes her daughter to speak for her'. It was a small chink in the armour of bureaucracy, but a significant one.
Our next saviour was a nurse on the A & E assessment ward, who agreed to a meeting with me, at which mum made her usual 'we manage fine, don't we Lindy' statement about home. Somehow I found the strength to say 'I'm sorry, mum, but no, we don't' I cried, she cried.....and the hospital kept her in. A referral was made to the hospital social worker, who was wonderful, applied for and got funding for us quickly (as she had to, mum being seen as a bed blocker helped in that regard). Within weeks mum was safe and well cared for in residential care.
I am really glad that the social worker helped you to get some free time so that hopefully you are not driven up against a wall as I was. And I hope your CPN is able to make progress with social services and others, as our OT and nurse did.
Wishing you all the best.
Lindy xx
I can't believe I haven't found your thread before! I've just read back to the beginning and your situation reminds me so much of mine when mum was at home in her flat (she has been in a care home for the last three years). Like you until recently, I was round at her flat pretty much every day, for most if the day, in addition to her having four care visits a day. I was beyond desperate. Mum wasn't eating or drinking enough, wouldn't wash ior change her clothes, was doubly incontinent every day and had no awareness of it. Three times in the space if as many months she was taken to A & E following falls and dehydration. Three times she was sent home as being able to manage....
No social worker ever suggested that I take a step back, and the CPNs didn't do home visits. The GP declared himself 'at a loss as to how social services make their decisions'. I wrote lengthy emails to them detailing mum's plight, to no avail.
Sometimes it takes just one or two professionals to finally understand the situation, and be willing to put their heads above the parapet. My first saviour was a hospital OT, who on mum's fourth A & E trip, asked her a follow up question to whether she'd like to go home (to which of course she always said yes). Quite simply, she established that mum wasn't talking about her flat, but somewhere from her past, probably her childhood home. She then asked her 'whether she'd like her daughter to speak for her'. Mum said yes, and bingo, the OT recorded 'Mrs B is mentally unable to make decisions about future care and wishes her daughter to speak for her'. It was a small chink in the armour of bureaucracy, but a significant one.
Our next saviour was a nurse on the A & E assessment ward, who agreed to a meeting with me, at which mum made her usual 'we manage fine, don't we Lindy' statement about home. Somehow I found the strength to say 'I'm sorry, mum, but no, we don't' I cried, she cried.....and the hospital kept her in. A referral was made to the hospital social worker, who was wonderful, applied for and got funding for us quickly (as she had to, mum being seen as a bed blocker helped in that regard). Within weeks mum was safe and well cared for in residential care.
I am really glad that the social worker helped you to get some free time so that hopefully you are not driven up against a wall as I was. And I hope your CPN is able to make progress with social services and others, as our OT and nurse did.
Wishing you all the best.
Lindy xx