Council help with 24 hour home care

vigman

I’m reposting from another section

My 102 year old mother still lives at home. My two siblings and I have been helping her but she now needs 24 hour care. She doesn’t want to go into a home and sell her house. 

We are looking into 24 hour care. At the moment she has over the £23,000 savings cap for council help. 

If she was to have 24 hour care at say £1500 a week, (£6000 per month) then she would soon get to the £14k baseline for help. 

My questions are: will councils pay for 24 care at home and how do you arrange changing from the private payment to council payments please?
Finally, if she uses this year’s and last year’s tax allowance of family gifting ie 2 x £3000 would this be seen as deprivation of assets or a legal use of her savings.

TIA

elsien

vigman said:

I’m reposting from another section

My 102 year old mother still lives at home. My two siblings and I have been helping her but she now needs 24 hour care. She doesn’t want to go into a home and sell her house. 

We are looking into 24 hour care. At the moment she has over the £23,000 savings cap for council help. 

If she was to have 24 hour care at say £1500 a week, (£6000 per month) then she would soon get to the £14k baseline for help. 

My questions are: will councils pay for 24 care at home and how do you arrange changing from the private payment to council payments please?
Finally, if she uses this year’s and last year’s tax allowance of family gifting ie 2 x £3000 would this be seen as deprivation of assets or a legal use of her savings.

TIA

Honest answer is no. In my area anything more than 4 calls a day and care homes have to be considered. What is the reason she needs 24 hour? Is it support during the night or is is something where assistive technology would help. 

At the point at which the council had to step in, they would do a Care Act needs assessment which would identify her ongoing support needs and set a budget for these. Anyone who needs 24 hour care is going to be in residential territory - it’s just not affordable otherwise. Particularly if your mum has mobility or any other support needs which require two carers. 

I worked with a lady who was nursed in bed but still only had 4 calls a day and no-one at night. She couldn’t call for help so if she’d been ill or there was a fire she’d have been in real trouble. That’s no way to live - it was more an existence. 

And yes, knowing that your mum needs 24 hour care, giving 6K away is likely to fall into deprivation of assets territory. 

I am very sorry for your mum’s situation but it’s best to be realistic about where you stand. Does anyone have LPA for her, if needed? 

comeandgo

Is your mother going to be in inheritance tax territory?  If not there is no need to limit gifts to £3000 other than deprivation of assets.  

theoretica

If your mother wants to continue to pay for care at home rather than moving, she might want to look at equity release - staying in her house, but also spending some of the equity.

vigman

Thanks everyone. She has become unsteady and has fallen at night. I’m 69 in poor health, my brother is 71 and my sister 79. None of us can manage her physical needs now even though she has some private care. She is so upset about the thought of a care home. It is very distressing. 

elsien

I can appreciate that. My grandmother was similar but had no choice in the end because she had to go into hospital at which point she accepted that even though she desperately wanted to go home it just wasn’t safe for her. 

It’s a no win situation sometimes. 

Savvy_Sue

vigman said:

Thanks everyone. She has become unsteady and has fallen at night. I’m 69 in poor health, my brother is 71 and my sister 79. None of us can manage her physical needs now even though she has some private care. She is so upset about the thought of a care home. It is very distressing. 

This may sound a bit brutal, so apologies for that. Does it not distress her that you and your siblings are doing your level best to care for her, but that it is just too much for you? 

Has there been any medical investigation as to why she has become unsteady and fallen? I'm wondering if trying to arrange a couple of week's respite care for her might help / be more acceptable than 'going into a home'. I have a friend whose father was clearly becoming less and less able to care for himself (and the cat ...) but resistant to change: the GP said to him "how about a couple of weeks change of scenery up the road?" Well, if the GP said it, it was obviously a good idea! 

Does she have an alarm system which would allow her to call for help? 

KxMx

Respite care is a good idea. 

It gives you and your siblings a break, plus shows your Mum what residential care is actually like, rather than what she fears it is like.

I'd definitely "sell" it to her as a break for you though. 

warby68

Has she had an assessment for her needs? Things such as walking frames, extra rails, grab handles, commode, support frame for the toilet all help.

She can have a care monitor which specifically picks up falls. If she doesn't answer someone is either contacted or sent out to help.

Obviously these don't help forever and apologies if you've done all this already.

vigman

Thanks again, everyone. All home improvements done and she has an alarm system. 

Very hard to get short term respite care round here. Mostly one month minimum but not available for many months. 

elsien

warby68 said:

Has she had an assessment for her needs? Things such as walking frames, extra rails, grab handles, commode, support frame for the toilet all help.

She can have a care monitor which specifically picks up falls. If she doesn't answer someone is either contacted or sent out to help.

Obviously these don't help forever and apologies if you've done all this already.

Again, the difficulty is who that person might be. Finding an agency to come out at night if there is an alert is near impossible so it falls back onto relatives or the ambulance service and then the ambulance service (understandably) get cross because it's not really their role.