Please help. Dad Died, Mum has dementia. Advice about care home fees needed.

clemmatis

van22663 wrote: »

Thanks all for your replies. In reply toTorre Quine, Mum has not been officially diagnosed with dementia. She will have days when she is totally with it & other days, she gets confused. She recognizes everyone but gets mixed up with time frames and she calls for her sister who has been dead for years. She has had a couple of assessments but they never get completed.
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The outreach dementia team have been called to doa proper assessment on mum. Think I have to wait to see what the fullassessment comes up with now.

I (and my mother) went through that too. I could not get a diagnosis, or even an assessment. And that even though I began to suspect it while she was in hospital -- for quite some weeks -- and worsened while she was there. There seems to have been a formal diagnosis at some time after she entered the nursing home the hospital insisted she enter. (That is, they insisted she enter a nursing home; as we had to pay, I chose it.)

All the time I visited that ward, a geriatric ward, not one person they pushed into going into a nursing home got CHC after an assessment, and my mother was, the nursing home matron told me, not properly assessed there at all.

Welcome to the world of elder non-care... but do talk to the relevant charities; not only AgeUK but the Alzheimer's Society (they cover all kinds of dementia).

http://alzheimers.org.uk/

And yes, wait for the full assessment.

SandraScarlett

Age Concern, Crossroads Care and the local council are also very useful. You're in a rotten position, and I hope everything works out for you.

xx

Trevor_Durham

Dunroamin wrote: »

I have already reported your other post as Spam. You cannot post on MSE promoting your services like this!

Sorry, I take offence at your comment. Surely having someone who actually knows about a subject comment on it is useful to all concerned, indeed I would imagine that van22663 is grateful that a professional adviser who knows about the matter at hand would give pro bono assistance in this way.

You should also note that I have not "promoted my services". If you actually go back and read what I wrote, I gave the details of a professional body for later life advisers and directed van22663 to contact them to find someone local to talk to.

pmlindyloo

We have just been through this so wanted to tell you about our experience in case it helps.

First of all, the dementia. I agree with other posters that a specialist assessment needs to be done to confirm this.

My mother who had 'all her marbles' appeared to be suffering from dementia whilst in hospital. This turned out to be a short term thing. It can be the result of a UTI, stress from her illness, some drugs, unfamiliarity of being in the hospital etc etc.

When my mother was ready for discharge (ie there was nothing more medically that could done in hospital,) the family were called to a discharge meeting. Present were a social worker based at the hospital, the physios, the senior sister and someone from the complex cases team.

To sum up, they said that my mother required nursing home care.

I asked that my mother was also assessed for NHS continuing care.

Later my mother was assessed by the senior sister, the physios and nutitionists, doctors etc and an assessment form was completed including the one for the NHS continuing care (this one - http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_103328.pdf

I was called for a meeting with the social worker to go through the hospital assessment and the NHS continuing health care assessment.

At this meeting I read through everything that had been said and corrected parts and added bits.

The assessment for NHS continuing health care completed by the hospital suggested that mum did not meet the descriptors required to be put forward to the Panel to make their decision.

However, after listening to me the social worker added comments to the descriptors and changed the 'grading' accordingly. My mother then fell within the required 'ratings' for the decision to go in fromt of the panel.

I do not know whether my mother will be granted NHS continuing care. If you look at the descriptors you will see that a high degree of medical needs are required but I did feel that I was given the opportunity to 'have my say'.

I insisted that I had the name and telephone number of the social worker who was dealing with my mother's case and this has helped tremendously as I had previously spoken to many different people. Mum's social worker knew all about NHS continuing care and has always been available to answer questions.

This is a very stressful time so you ahve my deep symapthy. I hope you will return to read this and it is of some use. I also hope I haven't been too longwinded and 'bored the pants off' everyone else!

PS You need to scroll down a long way on the link to find the descriptors in a useful table form.