Mobility Car/DLA

User_2280072

Hello, I am really hoping I could have a little advice. I don’t want to go on too much but basically my father was admitted to hospital early hours of the 3rd of October for a very badly broken leg. He was told by several doctors it needed amputating. By the time they’d decided upon this, the final doctor refused to do it and just stuck it in a pot and said he’d be stuck in a cast for the rest of his life and they’d just be changed.

After lots of training of mobility aids on my part as I’m his carer, he was finally able to come home on the 20th.

On the 27th whilst I was talking to him, blood shot out of his cast. He was taken to hospital and it was discovered he had a bone sticking out of his leg and a bad infection (which wouldn’t have happened had they just done the amputation they all agreed on). He was admitted to a ward early hours of the 28th of October.

My mother has to take his own incontinence pants in as he has bladder & bowl incontinence and has to take food and drinks in for him on a daily basis as he has other health conditions so his DLA is still being used completely on him regardless of him being in the hospital and not at home.

It has come to our attention that he could loose his mobility car. He has literally only just received it early this year and it cost him 7k to get the one he needed to suit his needs etc with a year and a half wait. Both him and my mum are really worried that the car will be taken off them. It’s linked the days apparently which means they’ve only got 8 more days before the deadline and from googling it says he’d have to stay in 2 weeks after the amputation. So he’d be 2 weeks potentially over the 28 day stay. 

The car is being used daily as I’ve mentioned above to take things in for him and visit him and without this car he won’t get the round the clock care that he does have. I use it to get too and from their house to care for him multiple times a day (it is only used for him I might add, it wouldn’t affect me if it went back but it would make it extremely difficult for me to get to their house).

It is a shame as had the doctor not refused to treat him and shoved a cast on, he’d be recovering and almost ready to come home if he wasn’t already there by now.


What happens now 

User_2280072

Anyone????

elsien

I don’t think there is a way around it.
DLA is suspended after 28 days in hospital so his care component will be suspended as well until he leaves. There are no exceptions to this. it will be reinstated when he leaves.
You will need to contact Motability and talk to them. There might be some flexibility if it’s only a couple of weeks (there certainly used to be, but I don’t have any recent experience with this) ,  but you can’t guarantee that  it will be only a couple of weeks because sometimes people need to stay in hospital for a lot longer than originally expected due to infections or other reasons. 

Hospitals provide incontinence pads so there is no need to take those in although it may be that his preferred ones are different. The hospital should also meet any specific dietary requirements - although I completely understand why people may prefer other options. 

User_2280072

They don’t put incontinence pads on, they just put a bed pad underneath like a puppy pad. That’s all they’ve been doing so they’ve asked my mum to bring the ones that she has at home which are expensive (over £10 pack of 8) so the money she’d normally spend at home, hasn’t changed since being in hospital. As for food. They offer him nothing more than soup as he can’t speak very clearly. When he got readmitted, everybody got to pick a starter, main and desert, they gave him soup and my mum went to choose a main for him, for the lady to say well he’s got soup he’s fine. My mum brings food so she can make sure he’s eating otherwise he wouldn’t eat at all.

its difficult because without the car he can’t have visitors, my mum for example would have no way of getting there and her income wouldn’t allow the £10-15 taxi there and £10-15 taxi back each day. It’s so difficult 

User_2280072

I saw a “pay the lease yourself” thing on Google, is this an option to stop his loosing the car?

elsien

You have to contact notability to explore any options. 

It would be helpful if you came back here once you’ve spoken to them with the information might be useful for other people in the future.