Health LPA 2 June at 2:14PM edited 2 June at 2:20PM in Disability Money Matters 3 replies 105 views

Collyflower1

Hi, i look after my elderly Mum and had a financial LPA made out for her a few years ago because of her reduced mobility. But since then she has been diagnosed with Vascular dementia, shes in her late 80's. I wondered does she also need a health LPA. I havent gone into it yet because of the sensitive questions i'd need to ask. If she ends up losing mental capacity completely would i and my brother & sister be able to make the decision of which care home we wanted for her , for example, as long as we all agreed?  What problems may occur if we dont have the health LPA? 

venison

Mother in law has vas.dementia, we have never had any PA for her and we decided which care home she went into, her son (who has since passed away) wasn't that interested  in which home.

fred246

If you don't have an LPA in place you may have to involve the court of protection. When I looked their fees were so high I made an LPA very quickly.

elsien

Presuming she lacks capacity at the time the decision needs to be made:
 If she would be a self-funder, then although it should be a best interests decision, in practice the financial LPAs would make the decision. 
If funded by the local authority or CHC then they would be the decision makers but would need to consult with family.  And in practice may say, these are the options,  what do you think? 
But welfare LPA is for medical decisions as well - you can't make doctors provide a treatment if they feel it's not clinically appropriate but in terms of other decisions,  such as palliative care ones, or whether to have an operation (for example), who would mum want to make those decisions? Without the LPA you still have to be consulted but an LPA/advance decision (and the discussions it may be good to have now to have a clearer idea of how mum would want decisions to be made) you get the final say, within the boundaries already mentioned.  
With all of the above,  all tends to go well until there is a dispute between family and the decision makers. Or between the LPAs if they have differing ideas as to what is in mum's best interests. She may not wish to appoint all three of you.  Which can be a hard decision to make, but if it's likely you may fall out over decisions she needs to think about what is going to work best for her and who she trusts most to be able to do that.