Has anyone had cause to use their local re-ablement service, and were they any use? After my Mum's fall last week, they came round quite quickly to assess if she was safe to continue living on her own, and it was agreed that all she needed was a grab rail at some steps. My brother was there for the assessment, and he said that the lady doing it seemed quite impatient and didn't have much of a "bedside manner" with Mum, which seemed surprising since 90% of her work must surely be with elderly and possibly confused people.
There was some concern (which we share) about whether Mum was still capable of cooking a meal, and my brother was told that the re-ablement team could send someone to call in and check Mum was OK for a couple of weeks, and it could be done at lunchtime so that they could check she was eating/cooking OK. That seemed like a very good idea. However, they were only prepared to do that within 2 weeks of her accident. But Mum is still recovering from her injuries and at the moment I or my brother are staying with her and looking after her, including cooking. Once she doesn't need round-the-clock care, which hopefully will be in a week or so, we aim to go back to her having carers calling in every morning to check she is OK, and that is when we would want the re-ablement team to assess her cooking abilities - but apparently they won't do it then because it would be longer than 2 weeks from the accident. How daft is that?
Since the conversations with the Re-ablement team, Mum has talked about going into a care home in September, so I thought it would be the decent thing to do to tell the council that she might be moving, in which case it probably would not be worthwhile putting in the grab rail. However, there is no guarantee that she will agree to move, so I asked whether the grab rail work could be put on hold until we knew definitely whether she was going to move or wanted to stay at home. I was told that the work had to be done now or not at all - and that since there was a possibility that she might not be staying in her home for long then they would cancel the work as it would be a waste of money, and they would not be prepared to put the grab rail in later if she decided to stay (at least, they wouldn't pay for it later, although we could pay for their team to do it later if she decided to stay at home).
I don't understand a system which offers help when a person doesn't need it, but won't provide it when they do need it.
There was some concern (which we share) about whether Mum was still capable of cooking a meal, and my brother was told that the re-ablement team could send someone to call in and check Mum was OK for a couple of weeks, and it could be done at lunchtime so that they could check she was eating/cooking OK. That seemed like a very good idea. However, they were only prepared to do that within 2 weeks of her accident. But Mum is still recovering from her injuries and at the moment I or my brother are staying with her and looking after her, including cooking. Once she doesn't need round-the-clock care, which hopefully will be in a week or so, we aim to go back to her having carers calling in every morning to check she is OK, and that is when we would want the re-ablement team to assess her cooking abilities - but apparently they won't do it then because it would be longer than 2 weeks from the accident. How daft is that?
Since the conversations with the Re-ablement team, Mum has talked about going into a care home in September, so I thought it would be the decent thing to do to tell the council that she might be moving, in which case it probably would not be worthwhile putting in the grab rail. However, there is no guarantee that she will agree to move, so I asked whether the grab rail work could be put on hold until we knew definitely whether she was going to move or wanted to stay at home. I was told that the work had to be done now or not at all - and that since there was a possibility that she might not be staying in her home for long then they would cancel the work as it would be a waste of money, and they would not be prepared to put the grab rail in later if she decided to stay (at least, they wouldn't pay for it later, although we could pay for their team to do it later if she decided to stay at home).
I don't understand a system which offers help when a person doesn't need it, but won't provide it when they do need it.
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