Respite for live in carers

[MrsWobble3]

Mil has dementia and is deteriorating. She has had 24/7 live in care for the last 18 months which has worked well, albeit expensively. She has now got to the point where she can't be left alone in the house and the carers are asking how we want to manage their contractual 2 hours off. We have found drop in centres and we can employ additional carers to cover but both these options add to the expense and may not work anyway - a drop in centre requires her cooperation to leave the house and that probably can't be relied upon. Dh and sil are trying to work out whether we can get sufficient cover from mil's existing support network - cleaner and gardener etc and then filling in the gaps themselves. I think this may be doable but will be stressful given both dh and sil have jobs and neither live close to mil (dh 1.5 hours and sil 45 mins).

Apart from a residential home - which we don't think mil will like and away from familiar surroundings we think may deteriorate faster - are there any other options we've not thought of?

The relief of the last 18 months has been phenomenal after the previous stress of patchwork care and i don't want to return to that if there's any workable alternative.

What have other people done in this situation - any advice?

[thesandwich]

There are some agencies like crossroads which sometimes offer free care for a few hours- has your mil been assessed for continuing healthcare funding? Not means tested.
Age uk may be able to suggest options. Good luck