Mum fast tracked to care home but what now?

[spirituscorpus]

Mum was fast tracked to a care home over two weeks ago. After a five week stay in hospital she was deteriorating due to not eating or drinking much and her dementia of course.

Although she was able to go to the toilet before hospital admission, was able to walk and able to feed herself she lost all these abilities due to being treated as bed bound in hospital.

I would visit her in hospital twice a day and assist in feeding her and she would eat, not as much as before but she did take the food.

I have a suspicion mum was tagged as end of life but lately she seems to have settled into her new place albeit she is in bed all the time.

For the first two weeks I made a real effort to engage with the care home staff but I have noticed that this has tapered off.

I get no updates on how mum is doing or really any communication from them about my mum at all.

I visit twice a day to help assist mum with eating.

There was no "sit down" meeting with staff or management when mum moved in and I've not had any formal discussions with them about mum's health. If someone is considered end of life then does that mean there would be no "care plan"?

Mum is still not eating when presented with meals and they explained they were happy to save meals until my visits but this regularly does not happen.

I asked if mum would be able to be taken out of bed and put in a chair sometimes and they said they always encourage that but later said they don't know if she has core stability to even sit in a chair (they hadn't even tried at that point).

A few days ago I arrived to find my mum's bed empty only to be told that she's in the dining room. She was there in the corner in a chair. Looking uncomfortable but at least out of bed but since then she's back in bed permanently.

It is beginning to feel that some of the nurses are perhaps not used to be questioned regularly by family members as maybe some of the other residents on mum's floor don't get family visits that often.

Whenever I ask them something it feels like I am interrupting them or bothering them but when I don't ask then I don't get told anything.

Any suggestions? Should I be asking for a review after a few weeks and a sit down meeting rather than a few stolen sentences stood at the reception desk?

 

[SAP]

Why don’t you speak with the manager or social worker and ask when the next review will be and how you can get feed back from that. In the first home mum was in I would get a 4 monthly phone call with mums key worker. In the home she is now in the social worker kept in regular contact for the first 6 weeks and now there is a yearly review. I don’t really get much feed back on a regular basis but the carers do chat to me when I visit so I catch up that way. I don’t think there is a process that all homes follow.

 

[Andy54]

I think that as far as updates are concerned the onus tends to be on the family members to ask and not rely on information being volunteered by the home, especially the care staff. My wife is in a fairly large care home which is divided into separate units, if I want any detailed information or updates then I have to speak to the unit manager (fortunately readily available when I visit) who can access all of the information on the homes system. While the carers are happy to chat in general terms it seems that there is a protocol to follow when more detailed information is required.

 

[Valencia72]

Sounds like a similar situation to my dad. While in hospital for 4 months he lost the ability to walk, nurses wouldn‘t take him to the toilet, never encouraged to get out of bed apart from by family.

He’s now in a nursing home, after he’d been there a few weeks so they could assess him we sat with the head nurse who ran through his care plan. Whenever we visit we can ask the head nurse for any updates and she’s happy to run through anything with us or will come and have a quick chat if she sees us and needs to update us. the other caring staff dont update us as much as I don’t think they know the same level of health detail but they do update us on if he’s eating and how he is generally.
Although dad now has no mobility he is taken to the lounge every day, and stays there most the day, the staff use a special hoist (he has a kind of slip that he sits on and then this attaches to the hoist so they can lift him into a wheelchair and back into bed). It takes two carers to do this. In the lounge dad sits in a special type of rubber bucket chair as he is prone to trying to get out of it and then would fall. There are ways that your mum could be in a chair safely and it’s up to the staff to assess the best way to achieve that.

 

[spirituscorpus]

Why don’t you speak with the manager or social worker and ask when the next review will be and how you can get feed back from that. In the first home mum was in I would get a 4 monthly phone call with mums key worker. In the home she is now in the social worker kept in regular contact for the first 6 weeks and now there is a yearly review. I don’t really get much feed back on a regular basis but the carers do chat to me when I visit so I catch up that way. I don’t think there is a process that all homes follow.

All of what you describe sounds totally alien to me as it's something I cannot relate to in our own experience.

When mum was selected for Fasttrack Discharge in hospital I assumed they considered her "end of life" although they didn't say that in so many words to me due to her not having any "active illness".

I am also presuming the care home she was moved to is part of Continuing Health Care needs based on the assessment at the hospital.

When mum was brought into this care home we didn't have any meetings with anyone and nothing was given to us on paper.

Any conversations we had were with healthcare assistants which revolved around bringing toiletries, clothes etc
Any subsequent topics are always intitiated by myself and although they give me an answer it never develops into anything other than quite curt replies to my questions (and it's not like I am peppering them with questions on a daily basis).

I certainly am not getting 4 x monthly phone calls or updates with anyone nor do I think I ever will.

I have no idea if there is a care plan or what it is or whether this is negated if they consider someone to be end of life??

Mum has only had a social worker assigned to her since Nov '23. I have had no contact from her since my mother was discharged to the care home (and only once during my mum's 5 week stay in hospital) and I'm not sure whether she would remain active in my mother's care once mum is in care home setting or not.

The hospital's social worker did speak to me a couple of times regarding mum whilst she was in hospital but I presumed their involvement ends when a patient is discharged from hospital??

Today, at the care home I asked the two nurses on duty if I could request a meeting to get a proper update on mum and to ask a number of questions I have and preferably in a private room (as I'd rather that than stood right outside my mum's open room with telephones ringing etc).

They both looked at me and then at each other as if "what? you want to talk to us about your mother!?"

I felt a bit daft to be honest.

Perhaps I should have asked to speak to the manager instead?

 

[Rayreadynow]

You can request to look at the Daily Care notes and that maybe able to help you with forming an opinion.

Fastrack from Hospital was maybe just to free up the bed space in the Hospital, as soon as the Hospital knows there is a Care Home bed for a patient to go to I get the feeling they don't hang around in discharging.

 

[SMBeach]

Mum was fast tracked to a care home over two weeks ago. After a five week stay in hospital she was deteriorating due to not eating or drinking much and her dementia of course.

Although she was able to go to the toilet before hospital admission, was able to walk and able to feed herself she lost all these abilities due to being treated as bed bound in hospital.

I would visit her in hospital twice a day and assist in feeding her and she would eat, not as much as before but she did take the food.

I have a suspicion mum was tagged as end of life but lately she seems to have settled into her new place albeit she is in bed all the time.

For the first two weeks I made a real effort to engage with the care home staff but I have noticed that this has tapered off.

I get no updates on how mum is doing or really any communication from them about my mum at all.

I visit twice a day to help assist mum with eating.

There was no "sit down" meeting with staff or management when mum moved in and I've not had any formal discussions with them about mum's health. If someone is considered end of life then does that mean there would be no "care plan"?

Mum is still not eating when presented with meals and they explained they were happy to save meals until my visits but this regularly does not happen.

I asked if mum would be able to be taken out of bed and put in a chair sometimes and they said they always encourage that but later said they don't know if she has core stability to even sit in a chair (they hadn't even tried at that point).

A few days ago I arrived to find my mum's bed empty only to be told that she's in the dining room. She was there in the corner in a chair. Looking uncomfortable but at least out of bed but since then she's back in bed permanently.

It is beginning to feel that some of the nurses are perhaps not used to be questioned regularly by family members as maybe some of the other residents on mum's floor don't get family visits that often.

Whenever I ask them something it feels like I am interrupting them or bothering them but when I don't ask then I don't get told anything.

Any suggestions? Should I be asking for a review after a few weeks and a sit down meeting rather than a few stolen sentences stood at the reception desk?

When dad first moved into his Carehome I visited for 3 days. (Sleeping in the guest room at the care home as it was a short visit from Kent to Scotland to get dad settled in). I had a meeting with the Manager who asked me lots of questions about dad. Then a meeting with Lead Nurse who was also Assistant Manager and lots of form filling. Dad sat with us for some of that information. Whilst there for the 3 days I also raised a couple of concerns I had regarding the non responsiveness of staff to dad’s call button. (Nobody came basically). I was assured this would be addressed. It happened the following day too so I raised it again. Since then I’ve returned to Kent having left dad in their hands for nearly 4 months. He was and is very settled but I had a review with the social worker and Lead Nurse that coincidentally coincided with my planned visit. I do email the manager and lead nurse and which ever nurse is on duty that day. So that is handy. I e been told reviews happen 6 monthly. Whether my visits will always coincide with that I dint know but they did tell me if not then they’d send minutes of the meeting to me and a copy of the care plan. They sent a copy of the care plan to me via email which I went through and corrected a couple of points. I’m sure you will be contacted when a review is due but meantime keep asking anything you need answered and ask if there’s an email address for care staff or nurses on duty.