Power of Attorney refused

[nicenewone1]

Just sounding off really.....Wrote letter to mums gp asking if he thought she had the capacity to sign a lpa. He said yes, then promptly went off on long term leave. So i paid £120 for the half hour appointment needed to run through it, and the gp we saw refused to sign it. To be fair she did badly when the gp questioned her.

So it's £400 now for the deputy thing and i don't think I'm going to bother. There is no estate at all, she doesn't even have enough money to pay for her own funeral. Dh is doing his nut about that but that's probably for another thread!

Thanks for reading!

[WinnieTheW0rm]

If you cannot secure a power of attorney, then you'd have to apply to the court of protection.

It's not about her assets (financial side) as you can also have inendrawn up for medical care, and that would ensure you have final say on eg which care home, what medical treatment. It is likely you'd be consulted of course, the system isn't totally inhumanne. But if there was a difference between you and relevant officials, you might find it somewhat more complicated if you have no legal standing

[nicenewone1]

Thanks, I was getting health and welfare too.

I've asked this on the elderly board too, but do you know if we can approach another health care professional in the hope of catching my mother on a more lucid day or is that now scuppered?

[mrsmalcolmreynolds]

You can approach another health professional, or indeed see the same one again as capacity can vary. The certifier of capacity doesn't even have to be a legal or medical professional - it can be someone who has known your mother for at least two years, such as a neighbour if there's anyone suitable?

I think you have to be careful though and ask yourself completely honestly whether you think she properly understands what she would be doing by entering into the LPAs?

[MadMumToThree]

We have PoA for our daughter (disabled) she cannot sign for herself so her Aunt signed for her. Didn't need to have medical signatures. Can you do that with somebody who knows her?

[MoreProseccoNow]

We did it through a solicitor, who asked questions over the phone/sent a representative to the house. My dad did better with that; he would have struggled with an unfamiliar environment.

We got both health/welfare & financial POA - we're in Scotland though & perhaps things are different.

[NewspaperTaxis]

Just to be clear, if you do not get POA in Health and Welfare then once your parent loses mental capacity (and that, as you can see, is loosely defined) then Social Services actually assume legal control of them. You, as next of kin, have no legal purchase on them at all. Even if you are self-funding they can overrule you regarding their nursing home - they are the decision makers, not you.

In fact, if you are self-funding you may have it worse as a) They want your money, and will want to use that to subsidise any crap nursing home they want to put your parent in - their priority is the care home's commercial viability, not your parent's welfare and b) By law, if you are self-funding the Council's Social workers/Safeguarding teams are not duty bound to investigate any concerns you have with the care home, and b) Do not have to inform you of any failings going on in that care home that you might not be aware of. In fact, as you are self-funding and subsidising everyone else (ie paying several hundred pounds a week more than the Council is per place) they have no incentive to tell you about any concerns raised by the CQC or anyone else, as they know you can pick up your bed and leave for another care home, thus placing the current one in greater financial jeopardy.

In other words, they can assume power over your parent - power without responsibility, whereas you have responsibility but no power - a recipe for stress.

Oh, and if they offer to let you move your parent back to the family home, it's a ruse. It's so they can make out you are likely to abscond with your parent from the care home, and get a court order stopping you from moving them from the care home. There is no way if you are self-funding that they will let you do get your parent back home - they want your money, to prop up their dodgy care homes.

Some of this information, namely the Council's wholesale lack of responsibilities - was charmingly imparted to us by the Local Govt Ombudsman when we complained about the machinations of Surrey County Council's adult social care team. The Ombudsman is, it turns out, an apologist for the Council. Go the CQC, he said. The CQC doesn't investigate individ complaints.

[ChristmasLightLover]

This is what worries us newspapertaxis - but the hoops to get this moving feel to be never ending! Are you writing from experience?

I am going to sit down with my Mum and do benefits paperwork this weekend and book appt for the POA process. If we can get someone to come to the house it might work for my Dad.

[ChristmasLightLover]

nicenewone1 How are things now? Did you get POA? How are you coping with all the changes?

[NewspaperTaxis]

Hi ChristmasLightLover , sorry for the delay but yes most of that happened to us. But most of what I stated is simply a matter of fact, not opinion. If you are self-funding, you will be paying more for your parent's place than the Council does per individual place, several hundred pounds a week more. As with going private at your dentist, you subsidise the others. The difference being, you have a choice whether to go for the nice white filling over the nasty gold one, while here you have no choice and you are paying over the odds until the money runs dry. They have you by the short and curlies.

Just to be clear, if your parent is broke but you went on to make your fortune, you don't have to pay a penny towards them - though you will be encouraged by the Council to pay 'top up fees' to patch up their care on a shoestring.

Again, other stuff I mention is simply true, such as how if you don't have POA then the Council assumes legal control of your parent once they are deemed to have lost mental capacity (and that doesn't mean they are dribbling and screaming and don't recognise you, it is more nuanced than that and the decision is not made with any input from you.)

[NewspaperTaxis]

Oh, and here is a dps of a story the Daily Mail ran a couple of weeks ago, but you can also pick up the story on mirroronline.com

It is my mother caught on the spy camera being sick all night 'allegedly' unchecked.

We handed in our our notice to that care home well over a month earlier but mysteriously our placement at the next care home fell through and we were said to be third on the waiting list now - we were told this by the new manager on the day she was due to contact the home to arrange to assess my mother.

Then Surrey's Social Services got on board and toyed with the situation. I'd crosses swords with them before after I exposed one of their homes that had nearly killed my mother to the local press, which inadvertently showed them up, so they weren't going to miss their chance this time. It was after this that I installed a spy camera, because I realised something fishy was going on.

But not at first. Social Services did the usual thing - suggested we get our mother back to the family home. It later emerged that they do this so they can then make out you are likely to abscond with your parent from the care home, and so get a court order stopping you from moving them from the home. We also later found out that meetings about her were being held under Section 42 of the Care Act. So we Googled this, and it turns out that this is where 'abuse' is cited, so we then had to email them to try to get them to disclose what the abuse was - turned out the care home had fitted me up to them behind our backs. Obv they weren't going to reveal this from the off, as our guard would have been up and as any conman knows, it's best your pigeon suspects nothing when you set out to turn them over. You pretend to be their friend, and that you are looking to help them out.

I have an email from Social Services to our family solicitors brazenly making it clear that as we did not have POA in Health and Welfare they are the 'decision makers'. As in, back off bitches, she's ours.

Like I say, while all this was going on, my mother was not having fun at this care home we'd given notice to, and who now threatened to hike the fees by 20% because we hadn't left. Eventually we got away - to a care home in Kingston, which I later realised what in a different borough so it seems we escaped them.

Oh, and had our meetings with our local MP Chris Grayling who was at best ineffectual and at worst complicit in the Council's wrongdoing. He had this phrase he trots out: it's cock-up not cover-up/conspiracy. In spite of his Failing Grayling nickname, if you hear him say this, it's even money that it's the latter. As a rule in adult social care, when you pour out your troubles to someone - whether it's the Council, the CQC or your local MP - well, it's like the scene in the conspiracy thriller when it gradually dawns on you that they're in on it. You are just showing your hand.

[ChristmasLightLover]

There is so much to get our heads around Newspaper Taxis - our paying the top up but we do not get to influence where Dad goes???!!! That's something else that's new to me. I'm so sorry to hear of your experience. We didn't even dare raise the fact that no one told us my Dad had escaped the ward and got to the car park - until the social services mentioned it in passing - in a review meeting. We didn't feel we could raise it as we wanted them to continue to be loving and helping of my Dad and worried it would turn them off him / us. So much learning to do.

[NewspaperTaxis]

Hi, you may get to influence where your parent goes, sure. Just, you don't have the ultimate power - unless you got POA in Health and Welfare, you are not the ultimate decision makers, and if it turns out you've antagonised Social Services, or they want to get nasty, they can.

I will have to go thru your posts because I'm not up on your situation, such as whether you are self-funding and of course, you don't have POA you say. My point is, the Council is basically made up of a bunch of shysters who are unaccountable and know it, just look at the latest Rotherham Council news where nobody has been held responsible for the sex grooming scandal. These are the kind of people, it turns out, who get to own your parent when you didn't know to get POA in advance.

[Didiplanthis]

There have been issues with gp's doing capacity assessments as when families turn against each other which they sadly do, if it ends up in court when POA is contested the GP may not deemed sufficiently 'specialized' to have made that descision. A capacity assessment made by a psycho geriatrician has far greater legal standing. Also families tend to apply for POA too late when capacity is already affected which is why in the OP the POA was declined. This is not done to annoy anyone it is a legal decision based on the assessment made that day.

[smilingmind]

I am in a situation where due to dementia my mother is likely to have to move from sheltered housing to a care home soon. She has funds to pay for this.
I am her only next of kin but due to complicated family reasons do not yet have POA.
There is no social services involvement.
Can someone please explain to me how, and why, they may become involved.

[NewspaperTaxis]

Social Services may not ever get involved.

I suggest you scroll back thru the thread. You may find a nice home for your parent, everything is fine, no need for S Services to show their hand. However, if you fall out with the home, they can contact S Services who will then misrepresent themselves as an honest broker when in fact it it likely - almost certain, if it's Surrey Social Services, to join forces with the home and fit you up i.e. have you barred.

This is more likely to happen if a) you or your parent is self-funding, for some reason they are treated worse than those who are council-funded, partly or wholly and b) if your parent is quite far gone in terms of their dementia and you have noticed a mysterious disinclination by the care home to provide adequate drink for them. In such an instance, if you try to move care homes, S Services will be contacted and they can stop it happening.

Not saying this will happen, just saying it can.

Oh, and if you rat on one of their dodgy care homes to the local press, Social Services may be on your back, though I think when I did it I really poked a hornet's nest, I'm not sure everyone who does this gets the same treatment.

POA is like travel insurance when you go on holiday. Nothing will necessarily go wrong, just saying it might.

[superram]

I have done poa for both my parents and got a family friend to sign on their behalf. You don't need an appointment you just fill in the form, get a person who has known your mum for 2 years to sign and have 2 witnesses.

[smilingmind]

Thank you newspaper