How to get someone into nursing care if they refuse? No capacity

I'm sorry it's such a nightmare for you. It sounds so hard.

Perhaps this could be a lucrative daytime sideline for the Chippendales?

Sorry but this made me chuckle and would 100% have worked with my aunt. Gutted I didn't think of it!

How have you got on? It is such a difficult situation.

I don't suppose my mum's situation is replicable but thought it might raise a smile. Mum was sectioned with dementia/delirium/acute what-have-you and was being very aggressive and uncooperative until the driver of the private ambulance came in to help. He was GORGEOUS, the living spit of Thor! He just held out his hand and mum went straight with him giggling like a schoolgirl.

Maybe you could hire a hottie to lure her into a car?

I couldn't face doing that to her, it would have ended in violence. She visited one care home to see what it was like and punched the manager in the face and ran off down the road. If you had seen how frail she was you wouldn't believe it was possible. Fortunately the manager was very good about it and said he'd never seen someone with advanced dementia in their mid 80s who could give Usain Bolt a run for his money.

I have to confess until this happened I had no idea how damaging stress could be. I was admitted as an emergency, they wouldn't even take my from A&E to the ward without first fitting me with a mobile defibrillator as my ECG was so bad. Had an angiogram and other tests, once I was away from the phone and stopped getting calls from SW, GP, police, her neighbours it all just settled to completely normal.

My DM (pretty bad Alz. by then) would never in a million years have agreed to move to a care home - why, when according to her there was nothing wrong with her? - but it had become an urgent necessity - she was no longer safe to be left alone at all.

Having arranged it all, we took her ‘out for lunch’ - a 60 mile journey and I was petrified the whole time that she’d twig. The CH had asked us to arrive for lunchtime - the actual lunch was very nice, poor DM still didn’t twig when you’d have thought it’d be obvious that it was a CH dining room. She even offered to pay for us all! 😩. Not that she’d had any valid CCs for quite a while.

I took her with Dsis, Dbro and BiL followed a bit later with her things (surreptitiously packed the night before) and a couple of small pieces of furniture.

She was self funded and we’d never involved SS - didn’t need anyone else to tell us what her needs were - they were obvious enough! - except that the home we’d chosen sent a SW for an informal interview to ascertain that she did actually need residential care.

I was dreading the day of the move like nothing else in my life before, but it went better than we’d dared to hope.

I can’t say she was happy or that she settled very quickly, but by then there was no alternative.

Good luck, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with and I've said I will never accept LPA for anyone again as it nearly killed me (I ended up in the cardiac unit at our local hospital.)

This also happened to both my SILs.

The SW will always start with the easiest / cheapest solution eg - get a taxi. So try that despite you thinking it won't work (or at least pretend you have). Then phone back the crisis team and say the taxi plan hasn't worked what do you suggest next? The likelihood is both police and ambulance will end up attending the house and she will be put on a temporary section whilst the ambulance crew transport her to the nursing home. You need to keep throwing this back to the crisis team. By all means try what they suggest but when that doesn't work you call them straight away to inform them and ask for more help.

I had this and so many people telling you to "just take them" when it isn't that easy or thinking it is just a legal question. I think what you are asking is what I asked, "how do you physically do it" and it is all very well saying this that and the other should happen, be firm, tell them what is happening when they won't actually move.

SW said all they could do was send the men in white coats to do it by force which I couldn't do. I even had backing from the police who were getting tired of the phone calls about the little green men in her loft who were keeping her awake, emergency calls from carers who had been locked out, complaints about her running up and down a busy road, a main route into the city where she lived. Still we got no practical help.

In the end we hired a private SW, he found the right home, a fall meant a trip to A&E and SW collected her with a bunch of flowers and said he was taking her for a trip out and a meal before she went home. Her carers had packed her stuff and he took her to the home. She didn't twig immediately but kicked off when the penny dropped. Hats off to the home as she put them through hell for a few weeks, phone calls to the police, setting off fire alarms. Poor young male carers were used to "charm" her and I often wondered if a young woman would be used in the same way with an old man without boundaries but that is a different question. Then she settled.

Good luck, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with and I've said I will never accept LPA for anyone again as it nearly killed me (I ended up in the cardiac unit at our local hospital.)

@user12743052 I really empathise. My dad did not have autism but dementia changed him hugely into this anxious, paranoid person. He couldn't cope with ANY deviation from the normal routine of just him and my mum, even my sibling or I visiting for lunch was an enormous issue, someone coming to service the boiler or similar meant he was unsettled and worried for days about strange people in the house.

I also understand - as many others will too - that social services are so stretched and can't just deal with it, so they expect family to pick up the pieces. You just need to stand very firm in face of the guilt tripping about what other families do, or couldn't you just... or that it's just for a short period.

Good luck - do you have siblings who can support you in this?

@user12743052 as others have said you need to keep throwing it back at your SW - the mental health act isn't always able to be used, sometimes the court of protection route for a deprivation of liberty order needs to be gone down. Are there no other options like 24hr care at home? i have rather horrible memories of taking a parent on a 4hr car journey in the midst of a psychotic episode because the nhs wouldn't transfer them back to their home city! i know you don't want to take "2 wks off work" to persuade them but sometimes things are most definitely easier when you are in the same city, we had a horrendous time trying to be in 2 places at once. Professionally i would say the only other thing to do if all else fails is to disavow all responsibility for your parent , in my NHS time i did literally see family members rock up with someone in a wheelchair & a suitcase and leave them at the door!

@user12743052 yes, the first time we approached social services, we were patted on the head and gently dismissed. They suggested my 80 yo relative could apply for carers allowance to continue looking after their sick partner when they were sobbing saying they couldn't cope. Rather quickly, this escalated when I gave written and photographic evidence of things like the condition of their house and the actions that were physically dangerous to themselves and to others. My parent wouldn't engage with social services and in the end they were sectioned. They were in hospital for nearly a year while a suitable placement was found. During that time, their assessments showed that although they had a good facade, they had no skills behind it, and their lack of insight into their condition made it hard to support them.

Good luck x

Ok I've been here. Literally, with a parent with dementia and undiagnosed autism. Feel free to pm

You will need to explain the ways in which the person is a danger to themselves and to others, and that you can't provide the care they need to support them and keep them safe. They will need to be sectioned under a Section 2 of the Mental Health Act (up to 28 days for assessment). If it is found that they need further treatment they can apply for a Section 3 hold which also means that Section 117 aftercare kicks in.

A&E in ambulance. Nursing home team collected them from Hospital and took them directly to nursing home

This was had to happen in my case. Social Services said we had to back off helping until they failed on their own. It was horrible, but it took less than a week for her to fall and get admitted to hospital. It is hideous that that was the only way we could get her support and she broke her elbow in the process. I had a LPA but was still unable to do anything.

I never knew this existed. We have a motability wheelchair van but don’t use it enough for their liking. We couldn’t think of a suitable way to get to hospital appointments etc but this service seems perfect.

Sorry to derail the initial post.

@user12743052 I’m sure it’s probably not allowed, but what about asking the GP for medication? Maybe a sedative would help?

This.

I contacted them when my father was declining and was at the stage where he was not safe to be left unattended even for 3 minutes. I was worried what would happen to him if anything happened to my mother. The very nice social worker I spoke to explained that they had a 24 hour emergency line which I could call and they would take over and keep him safe.

We talk about "sectioning" in terms of people who have serious mental illness but it can also be used to keep people with dementia safe, and take them somewhere they don't particularly want to go.

The only answer is wait till the wheels fall off ( and allow them to do so 😢) so eg they fall , are found wandering by police , cause a public disturbance or just get too ill to refuse. It’s very hard.

it is possible to take someone for medical attention by force in an emergency but usually involves waiting till patient weak . Police will intervene if danger to self / others in public place.

good luck. Been there. It’s awful.

@SeaToSki Just saw that it operates in MIL’s area. If only we’d known of that one. MIL was a prisoner in her own upstairs with fluctuating capacity for 18 months. Would not venture downstairs as she was too scared- even with a stairlift. Then lost all her muscle tone.