Mother in Law cant cope at home anymore....Help!!

glenstan

If your mil has her own home she is entitled to direct payments to stay in it, the value of her home is not taken into account. Your mil would need to be assessed as to the help she would need to help her stay safe and to carry on with her day to day living. The assessment would be done by a social worker, direct payments would mean your mil could employ the person/s needed to enable her to have the help she needs. This way is very under used by older people, often it gives them extra years of living in their own existing community. Your mil must have capacity to say, she wants direct payments, she can however have a relative manage them for her. more info on www.directgov.uk/ direct payments

monkeyspanner

dorry wrote: »

sorry to hear that your mil is so unwell.

I feel that it is a good idea to get others opiniouns on these types of matters, as it can become so so complicated. My dad got dementia after mum died and he kept have tia's (small stokes) which left him confused.

Before he became really unwell, he came to me and said that he could no longer cope at home and wanted to go into a home. This made life so much easier. We got his solicitor and I got power of attourney and kept all his finances in order. He lived in a private home, but was placed there by a social worker. This meant he had to have regular reviews of his care and an care plan drawing up.

However, there was a down side, they took a court order out and told us we must sell the family home and they would take all of his private pensions and a portion of the house sale for his care. They will take the house monies until it gets to 10,000. He lived for two years in the home and when he died, he only had the 10,000 left and even though he had massive health needs refused to re-assess for chc, saying that he was not that poorly:eek: A week after that he died.

I think he should not have paid for his care, if we lived in scotland, my dad would off kept the house money and pensions that he had worked for 50 years for.

Becarefull, don't make any rash decisions, I think the person who suggested renting out your mil house, was a good idea. I wish I had got some good advice like this.

let us know how you get on.

Not sure if you have seen it but there has been another successful retrospective claim for continuing care assessment in a recent legal case.

The savings limit under which you cease to be self-funding for care home fees should be £21500 not £10000 (although savings may be eroded by other expenses). When you cease to be self-funding due to reaching the upper savings limit you are expected to contribute all your income except a weekly(pocket money) allowance of £20.45(minimum).

There is an anomaly in the transition from self-funding to council provision. The council will assess the level of care needs and set a standard weekly fee support level. If this fee support is less than the previously agreed care home fees whilst self-funding the family will be expected to make up the difference as a third party top-up. If the family cannot do this then the council have the right to move the person to a care home that will provide care at the standard fee support level. Officially the person in care is not allowed to make up the difference as a first party top-up even if they have funds to do it.

If you have less than £21500 in assets other than your property the council must give support for up to the first 12 weeks of house sale process. This is called the 12 week disregard. During this period the person in care will be treated in the same way as a council supported person i.e. assessed for their income less £20.45. Once again the difference between the standard rate and the agreed self-funding rate comes into play but in this circumstance the person in care is allowed to make the first party top-up.

The other alternative is to request a deferment this means the council support funding but take a financial charge over the value of the property until such time as it is sold. I guess if property prices continue to rise this could be a way in which the cost of the care home is at least partially covered by the rise in the price of the house. Obviously the responsibilty for the house repair and maintainance still rests with the owner.

Another minor saving if you have to put the house up for sale is to empty it of furniture and request a 6 month zero rate reduction in council tax for a vacant property.

EdInvestor

Infor about self funding care:

https://www.hsbcpensions.co.uk/nhfa/pdfs/is6.pdf

Note the "immediate needs" care annuity - a good value product which will normally guarantee to pay the costs of care and leave money over from the sale of the house.

dorry_2

Hi monkeyspanner :wave:

have they upped the limits, my dad only died last year and the council informed us, that he would still need to contribute all his pensions and from his house sale, on a sliding scale from 16,000 to 10,000 and when it got down to £10,000 they would only take the pensions monies?? did we mis understand what they meant???

noonesperfect

I'm so sorry you are in this predicament it's certainly not an easy one. I was there a few years ago with my late Mother.

Hopefully your MIL will recover enough during her respite care that she could maybe move to sheltered housing or something similar - it would bring you peace of mind knowing there's always someone to keep an eye on her.
When my own Mother came out of hospital she was unable to look after herself and as it was nearly Christmas we found her a really nice place to convelesce (so she could continue with the nursing care she really needed still). As she had become increasingly frail and short of breath before going into hospital she had had to pay for help to wash, dress and get a "scratch" breakfast, in the mornings and for someone to come in the evening to do the same in reverse. Unfortunately she felt some were quite rough with her and that she was being rushed (they only had 30 minutes per client).
Sadly I think she realised that such was the state of her health it was going to be a choice between staying put at the nursing home or going home and having live-in help - both were ideas she hated. She died less than 3 weeks after coming out of hospital.

I think what I'm trying to say is, listen to her. Like someone else said water infections commonly cause confusion in the elderly, but do anticipate her needs and be ready for them.

Sorry if this is garbled, I mean well......

margaretclare

Urinary tract infections are very common, especially among older women, but they are preventable and treatable. And yes, they do cause confusion.

Many older people don't drink enough, and this is a contributory cause. We all need a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day, and this can be in the form of cups of tea, fruit juice, glass of squash, whatever. Also cranberry juice has been found to protect against UTI - it's a natural antibiotic. One wineglassful daily was used in one nursing home and their incidence of UTI tumbled from 'common' to 'rare'.

About falls - the reason many older people have falls is because their leg muscles have become weak. Strengthen them by doing leg exercises when sitting in a chair, and make sure the calcium and Vit D levels are optimum. Take advantage of any available sunlight - don't sit in darkened rooms watching TV all day, sit in the sunlight!

HTH

Margaret

monkeyspanner

dorry wrote: »

Hi monkeyspanner :wave:

have they upped the limits, my dad only died last year and the council informed us, that he would still need to contribute all his pensions and from his house sale, on a sliding scale from 16,000 to 10,000 and when it got down to £10,000 they would only take the pensions monies?? did we mis understand what they meant???

Hi Dorry
I'm not sure what the limits would have been in the past, current limits are as follows.

If you have more than £21500 in savings you have to be completely self funding.

If your weekly income less a weekly allowance of £20.45 is more than the care home fees you have to be completely self funding.

If you have between £13000 and £21500 in savings you are assessed as having a notional additional income. This is known as tariff income and is calculated as £1 per week for every £250 or part of £250 in savings. So the maximum weekly tariff income would be (£21500 - £13000) divided by £250 or £34/week. This tariff income is then added to your weekly income less the £20.45 weekly allowance to calculate your weekly contribution. There is one further disregarded amount of up to £5.25 /week in savings credit.

If you have less than £13000 in savings only your income less weekly allowance less disregarded savings credit is assessed as your contribution.

If you want a much better explanation there is a very good online leaflet here
http://www.counselandcare.org.uk/assets/library/documents/16_Care_Home_Fees_Paying_them_in_England.pdf
Counsel and care should also be able to provide what the past assessment levels were and have a very good helpline. If you think your Dad was wrongly assessed counsel and care will also put you in contact with specialist solicitors to take up your case.

We have also been advised by the pension service to reapply for income support when my MIL's savings get down to around £67000 which came as a bit of a surprise.

do_it_today!

Hi all :hello:
Thank you for all your experiences, advice and responses. MIL is still in hospital no diagnosis as yet apparently her salt levels are low I suspect it is a bad water infection as she had one a little while ago but then her pee isnt strong? The children are meeting this evening and I will take all the responses and try and look up some of the websites for more info! The speed and degree detioration is quite shocking as MIL had always been very active - she went out every week with her friend and attended weekly pottery classes. So to see her not even able to get to the toilet by herself and look so vacant is distressing.

Will update when we have more information thank you

margaretclare

It becomes a vicious circle with older people - they're worried about getting to the toilet, especially if they've had a fall, they worry about getting up in the night, so they try to limit their fluid intake, which is the last thing they should do. Some older people were taught not to drink with a meal and not to drink after 7 pm - yes, really!

I was once asked for my advice about preventing bed-sores for up-coming surgery, a woman who'd had a bedsore before. Dehydration is a contributory cause and I said this, explained about 8 glasses of fluid daily....'Stuff and nonsense' she retorted. 'Everyone knows you shouldn't drink in the evenings, and bed-sores are caused because nurses no longer rub bottoms with spirit, they're too lazy nowadays!'

You can't get through to some people. However, when you see your MIL, do encourage her to drink. I'm going into hospital tomorrow for surgery Friday, I know I'll be on a catheter for 24 hours, and I'm taking a bottle of Robinson's No Added Sugar in with me. I don't intend to become dehydrated or develop any nasty side-effects, not if I can help it!

Margaret

seven-day-weekend

My mum also came out of hospital suffering from malnutrition.

I had told them she was a vegetarian . I even said that if she'd forgotten to fill in her menu or no-one had done it for her to give her a cheese sandwich. I assumed then that they were giving her suitable food. (She was able to feed herself). I couldn't be there at mealtimes because I worked full-time. Mum said the food was 'nasty' but then again she always said that about other peoples' food so I assumed she was eating it.

But apparently they had taken no notice of her wishes and dietary requirements and kept giving her meals with meat which she couldn't eat. I only found that out when another family member went to see her at lunchtime.

I was livid and asked how difficult it was to give someone a cheese sandwich, but just got non-commital replies (virtually a shrug).

I was going to make a formal complaint to the hospital, but the residential home my mum lived in did so instead.

So yes, make sure your loved one is getting suitable food and is able to eat it.

I sometimes think they want old people to starve to death.