FiL stuck in hospital being rejected by Care Homes. Not sure what to do next.

To add insult to injury my mum is self funded and they still wouldnt take her

my mum is very gentle never been violent ever so far yet posh care home still refused her. The reality is she is virtually immobile and sits there all day and sleeps all night through she is doubly incontinent and cries out at times
o dont get it but it made me very cross I just think perhaps it was too mich to cope with as she is in the latter stages of dementia.
Then what an earth are dementia care homes for. I didnt realise some especially the posher ones can pick and choose doesnt seem right to me
I was really shocked when after waiting 4 months they assessed her and said they couldnt take her

We had the same with DF. No care home would look at him because he had lashed out at staff (before this he was the gentlest old man). He was in hospital for 6 months, deteriorating every day. Eventually he got lucky & "clicked" with a lady who came to assess him. We got NHS funding for him because his needs were so great by that stage. The week before his admission he was driving, socialising, planning holidays. By the time he got to the home he couldn't walk, was doubly incontinent & could barely feed himself. It was awful.

We had the same with DF. No care home would look at him because he had lashed out at staff (before this he was the gentlest old man). He was in hospital for 6 months, deteriorating every day. Eventually he got lucky " "clicked" with a lady who came to assess him. We got NHS funding for him because his needs were so great by that stage.

We had the same with DF. No care home would look at him because he had lashed out at staff (before this he was the gentlest old man). He was in hospital for 6 months, deteriorating every day. Eventually he got lucky " "clicked" with a lady who came to assess him. We got NHS funding for him because his needs were so great by that stage.

A DoLS doesn't take long to get, it can be 24 hours in hospital

I think when they're at that stage, residents are easier to manage than the ones who are looking for a place during a more combative phase. Though personally I've been surprised by the number of 'specialist dementia' places that have turned down MIL. I never thought she'd be easy. I didn't imagine it would be this hard to get her out of hospital at all.

Where I live the more expensive homes are around £1850 per week, I guess the residents and their families are paying for a ‘nicer’ experience and don’t want to live with a verbally or physically aggressive person.

why do the posher ones pick and choose who they want surely money is money and what happens when the people they cherry pick eventually and inevitably sadly get to the stage of severe dementia ie doubly incontinent unable to walk understand limited speech wtc do they just chuck them out then and pick someone at the beginning of their journey.
I dont get it I shudder to think really

I am sorry you are going through this OP and to all of you who have had similar experiences. My
Dm has been in a psychiatric hospital since last Autumn and it’s proving very difficult to find a suitable home for her.
I’ve ruled out all the ‘posher’ ones, well they’ve ruled her out I’m waiting to hear back from
my DM’s social worker and the placement officer to find out what’s next.

similar experience with dm first care home we really liked and waited four months for wouldnt take her after assessing her
She isnt violent ever but is in the later stages of dementia and cries out a lot and was losing her speech and mobility
She is self funding yet still they refused her think they were looking for an easy patient and this was a dementia care home!!
luckily a different home took her not so posh but a whole lot more caring that's for sure

Unfortunately families often don't realise how difficult it is managing this type of behaviour. Over the years I've looked after hundreds of patients who had similar issues. My ward did have a garden but it's finding time and staff which I'm sure you're aware is very thin on the ground atm! Some care homes won't accept people who are aggressive etc, even Dementia specialist homes. It's a case of waiting to find the right place I'm afraid.

Rather than a care home I think you might need to be looking at a nursing home, especially one that specialises in dementia. If he wants to be together with hs partner, that massively narrows the fiel but you might get lucky as a nursing hme will sometimes accept a couple where only one requires nursing care, knowing that the partner will take some of the burden of minute by minute care.

For very different reasons we hit a wall getting my DF acceptedinto a care home but eventually a nursing home took him.

How did the DoL get put in place so quickly? Before covid, my grandmothers one took more than 9 months to put in place. By the time it was agreed there were only 2 months left on it!

Sounds like a good outcome if a very rough process.

My mum had similar issues but the ward basically lied to get her out - or at least described her at her most benign moment. Because to the casual eye she looked like a lovely rather youthful elderly lady having a cup of tea and chatting, the first nursing home she went to took their eye off the ball and accepted her. Chaos ensued within 24 hours of discharge. Three weeks of hell and distress later she went to a specialist unit for challenging behaviour where she's been ever since. It's a long way away but I've never stopped being relieved she is there. I hope this means the middleman will be missed out and he'll only have to settle once.

Ah sorry just read your update. Sorry your family are going through this. What a shambles that no family were called to be there.

Sadly i had similar with my mum. Hospital is the worst place for people with declining cognition to be as they are left on their own for hours at a time.

If a dols order has been made it sounds like he is quite bad but hospital can def cause a worse presentation. My mum was terrible in hospital but generally placid at home.

My dad had to write to the chief exec of the hospital to get my mum home. We were a slightly different situation in that no dols had been made and we didnt want a care home but the hospital and social services were def dragging their feet and had reservations about her return home.

My mum came home in the end until she died 2 years later with several hospital stays but we never had the struggle to get her out again. It might not be right for your family but my 80 plus year old disabled dad kept my mum at home. It was the right thing for our family but i think it is discounted as being an option by many families when it can be the best option. Getting the right care package is key and we fought to get sufficent and appropriate care in place. My dad was physically unable to assist with any personal care or even feeding her.

I had very similar with my dad. He was showing some mild signs of dementia, forgetfulness, anxiety etc but was managing at home with some care. He then caught covid and went into hospital, he developed what was explained as vascular dementia- a very rapid escalation of the dementia symptoms we had seen prior to admission. He then spent almost 4 months in different hospitals, first the main admission hospital, he was then moved to a rehabilitation unit whilst he recovered from covid, then a geriatric unit in a local hospital. By this time his dementia was exacerbated by the constant moving, he became increasingly erratic, angry and violent, he simply didn't understand what was going on. The geriatric unit couldn't cope, he was meant to stay there whilst they found him a care home place- tricky at the time because of covid - but he apparently had an " erratic heart" ( which occurred immediately after a session where he had thrown his lunch at staff) and they shipped him off back to the main admission hospital and refused to have him back when the doctors there said his heart was absolutely fine! He was there for another 3-4 weeks until a care home was found- but only because of the additional funding from covid. He was there for six weeks before the funding ceased and an alternative had to be found! Six hospitals/care homes in less than six months, it's no wonder his dementia became difficult to manage!

I know, @Soontobe60 - my MIL had a DOL order when she went into a care home with dementia, but the staff asked dh - her son - if he was happy with the DOL.

You have my sympathies, OP. We're having similar problems with MIL, who's been in a specialist MH unit for months after being sectioned. The hospital think she'd be better off in a suitable EMI home, but so far we're getting polite rebuffs even from them about being unable to meet her needs, once they find out what they are. There's absolutely no question of her being able to return home. I don't know what we're meant to do but hope someone will say yes. Eventually. In the meantime, there are other people with severe dementia who desperately need these MH beds.

p.s. in some areas of the country(NHS postcode lottery is very real!!) there are specific teams that help people return to their own homes after being in a care home, it may be unlikely but your FIL may regain enough function to return home if he becomes more settled . A long stay on a hospital ward is enough to send anyone off the rails .

I have seen people fit for discharge on wards be there for months as there is no suitable place to move them to, sadly. All you can do is keep in contact with his SW and keep looking....once upon a time psychiatric hospitals used to be full of elderly people in long stay wards/beds who'd be there for the rest of their lives but care in the community came along in the 90's and now there are far fewer mental health beds..... and those are equally desperately needed for assessment and treatment so its a case of trying to find a fit with a NH. It becomes a catch 22 as his behaviour is less likely to settle on a acute ward and care homes obviously have their choice of patients and are likely to prefer someone with fewer challenges.