Home care

middlewife

This sounds very similar to my experiences.  94 yr old mum, lives 90 miles away. Unplanned admission which I had to beg for on boxing day.Gp asked if I could stay in her tiny flat instead of admitting her. She had pneumonia and  a uti. 3 days later visited a chiropractor who fractured her spine! Social services are only interested in people who have no money. I second getting a memory assessment ASAP.  Once you have poa you can override some of your mums resistance as long as its in her best interests.  She still retains the right to make an unwise decision.  Laughably, we eventually had no choice but to put mum into a care home as she was scared to be left and kept ringing all and sundry day and night, but the memory team refused to diagnose her with dementia as she has so much else wrong! Mum gets the higher rate of attendance allowance as she is paying for her care. Try to persuade her to try respite in a good home, thats what we did with mum, then she settled and has stayed. Its a horrible situation, but being 60, I couldnt keep driving 200 mile round trip several times a week...

olgadapolga

middlewife said:

Social services are only interested in people who have no money.  

This couldn't be further from the truth. My mum, in her eighties, was caring for my dad who was in his nineties. He had multiple problems including mobility issues and dementia. They had no money and lived very frugally. My mum asked social services for help and got nowhere. Eventually, after a protracted fight with them, they did an assessment and decided to send carers in twice a day to help mum. This lasted three weeks, social services didn't even tell mum it was stopping, the carers told her on their last visit. 

Mum was absolutely broken by this and still social services ignored the situation. Mum had to enlist the help of her GP who arranged a hospital admission as dad had so many things wrong with him that needed dealing with. Dad died in hospital.

Social services don't want to deal with anyone, rich or poor. They fail people over and over again. Certainly the ones who "helped" mum and dad were absolutely clueless. 

middlewife

I think you are right. The system is broken and overwhelmed.  I pleaded with the hospital not to send her home and they hung up. Mum was unable to shower or shop or cook. They couldn't have cared less. I encountered one slightly helpful SW out of several I spoke to, who at least told me the only caring agency in the whole of the district who had vacancies.  We still had to wait two weeks so I had no choice but to drive back and forwards from Reading to Bristol and back. Only last week I got chatting to an elderly lady in lidl who was on the verge of tears. She was trying to care for her husband alone with dementia and hadn't slept for days. I told her about attendance allowance and recommended she contact AgeUK, no point trying Social services.  Its a  sad indictment of our society that so many people struggle to get even basic care....

Sterlingtimes

Thank you, all, for your most recent insights. The situation may improve when social services walk away next week, and I can employ carers on my terms.

My mother is something of an extreme extrovert and has always been disappointed that her children and grandchildren have turned out to be introverts. She thinks that introversion is "unnatural". She always talks about "kicking the walls out" if she remains inside for too long. Sadly, she is confined to a new life of relative solitude after her injury. I feel as though I am dealing with a mother exhibiting the traits of dementia. My GP, however, believes that Alzheimer's cannot come on so suddenly. In June, she was entirely self-sufficient. Now she has no rational thought and will do nothing for herself. She describes her pain as "the very worst pain imaginable" and says that her condition has not improved since the day she left hospital.

I am weighing up the situation from day to day.

in_my_wellies

Here the county council came to do the assessment. I'm so confused that I don't know if they were from SS but anyway, mum is self funded so I opted out of the financial assessment.

Before the visit I phoned several agencies for details and costs per hour, etc.  The NHS funded care package was working well and it turned out they are a little cheaper if I go via the council than if I chose my own private care agency. The council charge £6 to invoice through them but that also means if there is a problem with the agency the council has responsibility to help. E.g, they can use another agency if everyone from one agency got sick. 

Sterlingtimes said:

My mother is something of an extreme extrovert and has always been disappointed that her children and grandchildren have turned out to be introverts. She thinks that introversion is "unnatural". She always talks about "kicking the walls out" if she remains inside for too long. Sadly, she is confined to a new life of relative solitude after her injury. 

This ^^ is just like my mum. She has lived with me for nearly five years and loved to go out everyday, even to the Post Office or local pond kept her happy but best going out to meet someone or do some 'people watching' She could be very funny/rude! She hated to have a day at home. After her stroke in April she is confined to bed or a hospital wheelchair via a hoist and it is driving her up the wall. Very little she can do with only one hand and a brain that can't follow the simplest TV. 

Frogletina

We had a self funding relative who started with free carers for a couple of weeks and then paid carers.

The carers initially visited 3 times a day but only for 10-15 minutes and had to be paid for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Always different people which he found difficult.

They would only microwave food which my relative with alzheimers didn't like. Also they often left the sink in a mess and didn't check he ate his food or take his tablets. 

Eventually we hired a cleaner for an hour a day who made sure he had what he wanted to eat, and that he ate it, as well as keeping mainly the kitchen and bathroom clean and tidy. She also checked he took his tablets.

With daily visits before work by a family member too, it worked well. We only wish we had done it sooner. We initially employed her once a week in addition to the carers but she was the much better option for every day instead of them.

She would write how he was in a diary each day, (dressed, happy, singing, confused or depressed etc) ring us if she was worried about anything and we employed her until he passed away.

Sterlingtimes

Frogletina said:

We had a self funding relative who started with free carers for a couple of weeks and then paid carers.

The carers initially visited 3 times a day but only for 10-15 minutes and had to be paid for a minimum of 30 minutes.

This is a helpful posting, Frogletina. Thank you. An assessor from the new carers will come to visit us on Wednesday. I am opting to take the carers for getting out of bed in the morning for 30 minutes and putting into bed at night for 30 minutes. I will visit about midday to prepare meals and check everything.

The new carers appear to be reluctant to deal with medication. Perhaps they do this to avoid negligence claims if something goes wrong. 

Yes, it appears that care is paid for in 30-minute chunks only: £18 weekday, £20 weekends.   

elsien

Standard part of care to be giving medication so it’s something that they should be used to. Did you mean giving or ordering? I’d be sticking to doing the ordering myself if possible - gives better oversight. You could get the local pharmacist to use a blister pack or dosette box and printed MAR sheet? (Medication administration record) if they’re going to be giving it. 

Sterlingtimes

in_my_wellies said:

Here the county council came to do the assessment. I'm so confused that I don't know if they were from SS but anyway, mum is self funded so I opted out of the financial assessment.

My mother has become very rude. No pleases or thank yous anymore. She gives instructions such as "fill my glass", "take this away", "give me a serviette, and "not now; come to see me later". I think that she may be upsetting the very people who are giving her help.

PennyForThem_2

As an introvert who absolutely makes my own entertainment and likes my own company, I would hate, hate, hate going into a residential carehome with a caveat.  If I had dementia I would hope I didnot realise .....

If an extrovert why wouldn't you want to?  People watching, socialising, gossiping - I would have thought catnip for extroverts - but am I wrong?