The new shiny 2019 thread for anyone caring for elderly parents

I have looked at attendance allowance and am quite confused

my mum doesn't have a disability, she does have a heart condition though. I'm guessing that means she can't claim any AA? She can drive, walk a half mile or so, carry a laundry basket up and down stairs etc, cook, etc etc.

she can do light dusting but has a cleaner in for most of it - just once a week. Everything I can see online would suggest she's not entitled to it...

Welcome Rabbity to an exclusive club that nobody wants to join. My advice, FWIW, is remember you are her daughter and not her carer. So while you can, get your ducks in a row. Apply for Attendance Allowance if she doesn't already get it, and use it for things that you can outsource eg gardener, cleaner, someone to take her to appointments. I wish I'd done it sooner. My mum was 90 last year and still going strong, so at 64 your mum could have many more years left in her.

Rabbity welcome along, hope we can support you.

Yolo sorry to hear that. I sometimes get a bug that I call the temperature bug, because a high fever is the only issue. It's weird. Thanks for clarifying that re SS, that makes more sense now.

aa has different rates for care and mobility - the citizen advice bureau have a great page about this benefit, and it isn't means tested - if you care for a parent who receives aa you might be able to access carers allowance too - love the cockroach explanation - I don't know what I would have said either if asked this...….

thigh I cant remember the figures, but there is DEF a higher rate - might be worth looking into?

rabbity hello and welcome, sorry you have to join us... if anyone says cockroach it is a general expression of cheers - stems from my now dead DM being asked to name a small animal with a hard back in a 'meet the animals' session in the care home she lasted 2 nights in before falling over again. She couldnt, and my DB helpfully suggested 'cockroach'. I realise that sounds totally random and mad.

Hi there, the financial side of things is complex and ss now have a team designated for this in each borough; if you have savings at a certain threshold or over, not sure for this tax year, you will be seen as a full funder or self funder, but as said before, if you do purchase via ss you might get a better hourly rate as paying their rate, rather than the commercial private rate - home care can be very expensive whereas a cleaning, bits and bobs company is much lower - houses are only ever looked at as collateral if needing long term care i.e. the person will be leaving the property and not living there, so no-one should have their house assessed as finance/income if staying at home - if, under the threshold, you will pay a contribution for the care , but at different percentages depending on how near that threshold you are...….however, some ss will have a cap on what people might pay a week because they have certain care needs and unwell - another scenario, if on income support/pension credit/pip/jsa they should not have savings over this threshold amount either, and why they are on benefits, and again might have to pay a percentage contribution based on their savings and benefit amount/type of benefit they are on i.e. with council tax benefit the bill is paid but will be based on their whole assessment - I always urge people if married, partnered to have separate bank accounts too so thresholds are kept low e.g. a joint account could have 40,000 plus but actually under the threshold if split between the two parties iyswim :)hope this helps

Yolo i didn't know AA was not a flat rate? M&D both get £220 pcm, is there another rate?

Hello, I hope you don't mind me joining you. My mum is 64 and not in the best of health, physically or mentally and as her only child and her being divorced with no other relationship it all falls to me to support her. I don't begrudge helping at all but I've got a young baby, full time job and all the normal life admin to do that I feel like I do everything a bit shit because I can split my time between everyone who needs/wants me. I have a very supportive husband who helps me but it's the mental load I'm struggling with.

I've got my mum to move to a smaller property in a retirement complex so that's helping a bit.

Sorry for the ramble, I just came across the thread and had a brain dump.

yes I think you are right dint. However, Attendance Allowance is not affected by income, my DM got higher rate, and you can use AA for whatever you want - cleaner and gardener and taxis in DM's case. So worth checking your oldie is getting all the AA available, DM got higher rate. But you have to be meticulous in the formfilling, and present worst case scenario at every stage of the form - ie, not they can walk 20m unaided on a good day, but can only walk 2m without aids etc etc.

Can I just check up on financial contributions to care in the patient's own home? Am I right in thinking that savings override income - ie, if you have over £23000 savings you have to pay it all yourself, even if your income is low, until such time as your savings have dropped below the limit, and then they'll start seeing if your income is too much for you to get financial assistance.?

I know that while you're still living in the house, that doesn't get included in the calculations.

My mother, who lives farther out, fares better because of course as an oldie she gets priority. Ooh, that's worth looking forward to! - when do you become an "oldie"?

I kind of agree that the private route is better and gives you much more autonomy, but only up to a point. The SS assessment is useful to have done, as it gives you a lot of pointers about the type of care needed.

The thing with private ones (at least, I found this) is that as soon as the oldie becomes a bit too difficult or frail, they dont want to know and will back right off very quickly. So if you dont have SS carers in place you could be landed with a sudden no care situation if the worst comes to the worst.

Our cleaner/friend was wonderful, as was the gardener, and I think they would have stayed through thick and thin, but cleaner couldnt up her hours so we went to an agency. Brilliant for a good few months, but as soon as mum got tricky it went very tits up.

If you can work it so you can have the SS carers visits and then top up in between it could be ok. however we had that for a little and mum managed to fall over between one leaving at 9.15 and the next arriving at 11.15 (at this stage she wouldnt go into a care home).

we spent this afternoon in A&E with DH - chest pain and very high temperature after his bronchoscopy on Thurs. got in and out within 2 hours because temp right down and after ecg they said chest pain was muscular. apparently, once you start chemo you get a kind of 'cancer card' which fast tracks you - told DH it sounded like what you can buy at Disneyland!!

thigh that makes sense.

Grace i called 111 and got him put on the district nurse list for his GP surgery so he will get a visit re bum sore. 9 weeks out of hospital and his pressure sore is still there. The skin isn't and hasn't been broken but why no better after 9 weeks? On Monday if still no contact from cardio i am going to cardio unit at the hospital to find the fucker. I don't see the point in trying to explain the potential cock up re meds to randoms over the weekend.

absolutely your mum must do what's best for her - just giving you the other side of the coin if you went through ss :)

thigh did you go to out of hours today? Hope your dad's meds got sorted.

thigh thanks, that's what I was hoping.

Grace when i said we would make our own arrangements SS closed the file or made it dormant. If you don't need SS funding you can just be autonomous. That's what we've decided for now.

Grace i just looked into costs and our Borough said £50pcm rolling admin fees plus £19-25 ph for care. In the borough you pay a cleaner £12ph so would have thought crossover care/ cleaner should be £15ph. We've decided to up the hours of the cleaner a lot as M&D already know her and we all like her. She can bring her kid if she wants to and will pop to Boots, M&S etc. Someone from SS emailed me all the private options and i didn't think they were any better than Upping the cleaners hours substantially. Really cleaning or housekeeping is a large part of what they need ie buying or cooking meals, serving them, clearing up after, keeping laundry ticking over, keeping the house clear and safe. Plus she gives company and a laugh and phones me if it is worrying. The cleaner used to work in a care home so is also prepared to have a look and decide to wash the olds rather than the floor that day.

Local councils should be looking at emotional and social well-being too so an assessment shouldn't be awful it will give you the opportunity to have a carers assessment if doing a great deal for her - councils vary, some still only support those who are what used to be called critical so cannot manage without help and support, to eat, clean, toilet, get out of bed - they will do a financial assessment and if she owns her house lives alone or has tenants in common arrangement this will affect what you will pay

thanks user - I hope this is a way off, we were just pondering, but thank you.

Hi if your mum chooses to pay that is fine,however it might be worth getting an assessment for care, as the rate you pay per hour for care related tasks via a council tends to be cheaper as they block purchase care - if she wants privacy I.e cleaning and some care it could be bought privately however where she lives could determine which route you take and how you move forward pm me if you like

Monica yes, I wonder if some of it is just sheer luck, for what borough you are in, the timing of health issues, the professionals in charge of your case etc.

user thank you, sure a lot of people will find that helpful
my main thing at the moment is wondering if my mum needs care, and we are paying, would SS be involved at all? She and I both rather hoped that if it came to that, we could just pay for care and not do mega form filling or having strangers come and make rules about things. Or do SS just automatically get involved because there's a vulnerable adult?