care homes in Essex

[fruitshootsandheaves]

Does anyone have any experience of care homes in Essex, (residential / dementia) mainly ones in Bishop's Stortford / Braintree areas.
We are currently visiting several to try to choose one, can anyone recommend ones to see or ones to avoid?
TIA

[alypaly]

my best advice would be to visit at least a dozen without an appt and then you will see them in a truer light. If you make an appt,you dont get as realistic a picture. I went round at least 12 before i found the one for my mum and even that had alot of problems that i had to sort on an on going basis. Its not an easy decision.believe me

[fruitshootsandheaves]

Oh really? I have made an appointment everytime so far. I thought they might be busy or have no one there to show us around if we just turned up.
We will have seen 4 by next week but I will have to force encourage my sister to see some too as I have done it all myself so far.

[alypaly]

why is it that one child seems to do all the work. Thought it was just me. I didnt mind,cos i loved her loads,but help would have been appreciated as its a difficult time

[fruitshootsandheaves]

My sister does go round at the weekend and now makes dad some meals but she has no interest in any of the 'doing' stuff like the power of attorney the will or the actual care home stuff
She relied on him for a long time for weekend meals and now it has turned round and he has become too reliant on her. He always phones her, never me but I always seem to be left to do the difficult stuff. i can't says she does nothing but I am going to end up the one being hated for 'forcing' him to go into a home.

[alypaly]

fruitshoot..how far are you down the line with all the POA's and care home details....attendance allowance etc
its a minefield. Have you got full POA or enduring POA. Tahnkfully my mum didnt hate me for eventually putting her in a home. I looked afetr her for 24/7 for 8 months,until i was on my knees. She had alot of strokes(TIA's) which took her memory away and gave her an alzeihmers type condition. Thankfully it didnt affect her limbs until the last year. If you need any help just ask Its a rocky road,with tons of paper work for the one doing it all.

Keep all receipts for anything you buy for him as the Social services will want to know how you are spending his money.You are only allowed to spend £17 a week on their personal things( it might be slightly different ,ut thats what it was when my mum was in care)They will want to see all bank statements and can go back 7 years into his accounts to make sure money hasnt changed hands within the family. If you need something big for them ,you have to ask permission to spend their money on them. Its dreadful and heartbreaking. Start a file off now as you will need several

Are you going private or funded

[alypaly]

sorry for the typos......am trying to iron in between....typical female...multi-tasking

[fruitshootsandheaves]

sorry only just got back to this thread. Have done the POA am going in on Sat to give the forms and register the POA with each bank and that will be it, me and sis will then have full control of everything.

Have 2 more care homes to visit next week. sister hasn't seen any so I think I will just tell her which one I like best and it will be up to her if she goes along with it or goes to see some more herself.
He won't qualify for any financial aid AFAIK as he has too much in savings. As from what I have read he is not ill enough to get attendance allowance, still mobile has no health issues apart from the dementia/alzheimer's.

He will be going private too. He does have savings which is also a nightmare as we will need financial advice as to were to put it so he can get the best interest etc to afford the care home.

We did try to have him come and live with us as we saw a house that would have been ideal but we couldn't sell ours so have given up on that idea now, although he is still saying he wants to come and live with us. Can't imagine why as he has hardly ever visited!

Interesting was that the care home we saw yesterday which was lovely (well as lovely as a care home full of slightly mad old people can be!) told us that we do not need to wait for Social Services to contact us re an assessment , they will do their own assessment and he can then be admitted. That is a big relief actually as I contacted SS back in sept/oct and still no assessment and he is an urgent case!

Thankyou for your replies it very useful to hear other people experiences as we have no other experience of all this.

[alypaly]

Make sure the home has had a recent CQC check.
Has the social worker assesed him for attendance allowance as there are 2 levels. Top one is about £2240 a month depending on how much assistance he needs. Even if he has over the £20K in savings he is still entitled to at least the minimum. Does he need help to remember to eat,dress and clean himself....try and get a goos social worker (maybe a hospital one if he was in hospital for it).

If you are self funded ,he doesnt need an assessment...it is only when SS start to take over care when they reach the financial threshold. TBH it is hardly worth trying to invest the money as they will take it all anyway. The sooner it goes down to £12K the sooner they take over. I spent the whole of my mums savings and the proceeds from the sale of her home on her care.Initially she was self funding until her savings went down then they gradually paid a small percentage. Then she became so ill i fought for a private nursing home and eventually won her case and Social services had to cough up to the tune of £4,400 per month. Unfortunately 7 days into her private care she sadly died.
TBH it was a relief to not see her suffer anymore as she only weighed 5.5 stone.

Good luck with everything ,but keep that file updated as social services come to your house and go through everything very invasively down to the penny.
They make life so much more stressful than it needs to be. If you keep everything up to date,it stops them from being so intrusive into what i believe is private.

If we lived in Scotland we would get this free for them... its dreadful