Power of Attorney

[FedUpWithBriiiiiick]

My dad has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and only has a few months left. He has complex care needs now, so he is moving from hospital to a care home in the next week (He's only 70 but this is the only suitable topic I could find - sorry if posting in the wrong place)

Thankfully, he's still in his full mind, so I'm thinking now is the time for my mum to apply for Power of Attorney for his financial matters (and maybe his health matters too?)

We are in NI, does anyone have advice on the process?

P.S. - it is all fucking shit. I hate this. I don't want my daddy to die. Sorry, just needed to vent.

[retirednow]

It is shit, i am so sorry about your poor dad. Poa can take a while, what do you think you will need it for. He will be in a carehome, do you know how it is being paid for. If he is having to pay for it privately then speak to the care home manager and get his GP to assess him for fast track funding, you can Google this, it is for people who have a limited time left., there will be a bit of paperwork involved and social services to speak to but do try. He could also benefit from having palliative care input from the GP and community nurses, make sure this is done, again speak to the home manager so that they are able to m3et his n3eds and offer him the best care.

[retirednow]

There is a section here for life limiting illnesses which might be a good place for you to post

[appleblossomtree]

Hi OP. So sorry you are going through this

I know it feels so wrong to be thinking about these issues. But this really is the time to be checking wills, power of attorney and wishes re care and also after death are discussed and finalised. Better to do it while your dad is alive and can confirm his wishes than to all be second guessing afterwards. It will save you all a lot of pain afterwards.

So sorry again you are going through this xxx

[retirednow]

You can ask the hospital ward sister is your dear dad has been assessed for fast track funding and what care plan is in place for his future needs. It would be nice if your dad wants to be involved in his planning, its a difficult thing to discuss but some people like to be able to plan and take a bit of control. They sometimes do this by drawing up an advance directive, if you want to apply for power of attorney it would help your mum make some decisions if he lost the capacity or ability to do so himself, you just phone the office of the public guardian and they will send you the papers that need filling in.

[FedUpWithBriiiiiick]

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts and great advice

Social worker is fast tracking the part-funding (nursing needs and attendance allowance) which is great. The remainder will be self funded. Mum wants to make appointment with solicitor on a Tuesday (after the St. Patrick's bank holiday) so I think things are travelling in the right direction.

He was in good form today, and talking about finances - which is his pet passion - so I think he would be keen to get stuff sorted.

Thanks again all. MN at its finest x

[retirednow]

Fast track chc may pay for all his care, do look this up online if you get time. It's full funding, he should hopefully have had a care needs assessment, known as a chc checklist in the UK, ask for a copy of this from either The nurses or The social worker. The nursing contribution is totally different and is called fnc and is paid to the carehome if someone has nursing needs and doesn't qualify for full social funding the attendance allowance will be paid to your dad and can go towards his care. He may well qualify for fast track chc funding, they don't always tell you about this so you have to ask, it can be applied for in the hospital or the carehome. I am happy to hear he is having a good day. You don't need a solicitor for power of attorney, you can do it yourself but a g.p may ask for about 100 pounds to carry out a capacity assessment and sign as the certificate provider.

[FedUpWithBriiiiiick]

Oh fantastic advice @retirednow thanks! I'll make sure to ask about that funding.

[retirednow]

[DancingLedge]

Sorry for what your family and you are going through.

I wonder if you'd get more specific POA practical advice over in Legal?
(Under Other stuff~Legal)

[retirednow]

Sorry, just while I think about it, do ask if your dad has had a chc assessment, you can look it up online. Some people will fob you off and say that he won't qualify if they are self funding but it's a care needs assessment. Also ask for the doctors advice and if your dad has been referred to the palliative care team or Macmillan service. It's a difficult time so do hope you are all ok.

[Flyingprettycretonnecurtains]

You can do it all on line, print forms off for signatories,. You need to get a certificator, ie a trusted friend who signs to say your father is in right mind, not cooerced. I suggest your mother and you or other siblings as attorneys. You pay on line. The biggest pain for us was all signing in the right order. On the health one there is a box for special wishes so he can be specific about decisions regarding end of life care.

It was all fairly easy to do. My big problem was that I was handling elderly mother plus two bossy older sisters all from a distance. Do your mother's at the same time. We should all do one.

[Chocolategirl79]

We did it online with a friend to witness. As someone else said, the difficulty was in the order of signatories. And it takes a while to come through. I applied in Feb for it and it came through today. I actually cried with relief when I got the actual paperwork. It's been a long hard slog to get this far for us! Do it as soon as you can and for both elderly parents (before you need it). Don't leave it till the last minute.

[NewspaperTaxis]

Can only echo the importance of Power of Attorney in Health and Welfare. Finance too, of course.

If you don't have POA in Health and Welfare, the State becomes the decision maker for your parent's care, not you, should they temporarily or permanently lose mental capacity, be it a stroke or dementia.

a) When I say 'State' I mean your local Council, who can be pretty awful, the worst bunch of scumbags ever and wholly unaccountable, what's more. Everything you've heard bad about Social Services is true based on my experience. The whole foster parent racket always sounds like it's an urban myth but I wouldn't bet against it now.
b) You don't decide when they have lost mental capacity, someone else does. Don't get carried away with the 'shouting nutter pissing himself better off dead' narrative that's being put about. My mother knew who she was, who we were, where she was and we had a rapport with her, we could take her out for the day to a local cafe, but was deemed to have lost mental capacity. We paid full whack, Social Services owned her. Charming!

If you don't have POA in Health and Welfare, you won't even be entitled to see your parent's medical notes. You can see them after they're dead, mark you, but then it's kind of too late. If you see the words 'severe dementia' written all over the notes then you can expect some Liverpool Pathway-type stuff (killing thru a policy of dehydration) to be carried out by the care home and authorised by the Council, and there's not a single thing you can do about it. You are not the decision maker, they are. They can and will stop you moving your parent from a failing care home, and will be brazen about it... they really do hate the public.

As for palliative care, well, who the hell knows what this is? We got pressurised into this for our mother who had advanced Parkinson's even though she was on a fork-mashable diet and drinking a litre a day (when we advanced this argument, guess what? Social Services set up an unnecessary SALT test rigged for her to fail. She didn't.) It always seems to me that palliative care is a case of 'your parent has a few weeks or days to live, shut the door behind you'. We did not want our parent murdered by the State but of course, technically, it's not murder if they've lost mental capacity and you don't have LPA, just as it's not murder when Great Ormond Street turn off the life support with those kids in hospital. I understand it's different when someone has terminal cancer, but believe you me, the whole thing is stressful enough without the State poking its nose in and making it worse.

The other practical advice is to start to live every fortnight like it just might be your parent's last, and this is applicable to anyone who thinks their parent may not be here in a year's time. That way you don't put any enjoyable outings or events or purchases on the backburner - which is easy to fall into if you want to eke things out or have something to look forward to during stressful times. You are not really in control of this illness/process, though you can put out fires a bit, so watch out for exerting excessive control in other areas of your life just because you can, to subconsciously compensate. That includes delaying or stringing along stuff, sort of toying with it. Delayed gratification/ perfectionism has no place when dealing with the elderly. Also, when you get wind the end is near, you can't rush around doing all this stuff then, it feels heartbreaking and acting in bad faith, like you are selling your parent out. So get it all sorted asap, so you don't have to sort of segue into it when you would rather be in denial, things can just carry on a bit as before, do not have a list of things to do before your parent dies, it's implied that if you complete the list, it's all over.

Sorry to bang on, but you can read this now, better than in a year's time.

[NewspaperTaxis]

Just re-read that, just to make it clear, I am not implying that anyone with terminal cancer should be bumped off, I am saying that as it is 'terminal' the end may well come at some point.

However, if you've got Parkinson's, well, the end doesn't really come in quite the same way, yet being described as 'terminally ill' they have ways and means of ensuring you don't outstay your welcome and are deemed not not be able to speak for yourself (i.e. lost mental capacity).