Social services want to move relative out of residential care home into independent living

I would imagine there is a system to make a formal complaint about the decision and you should use it. Complaints are investigated properly and recorded - if you are just having informal conversations with people it is not the same thing.

They are not going to make your relative homeless. That will never happen. The council has a duty to house them and they will be in priority need as a vulnerable person who is homeless. What is likely is that social care will agree to some interim funding whilst an alternative placement is sought.
Once you have a final decision in writing there will almost certainly be an appeal process and they will probably have to pay whilst that is winding onwards. There will also be an official complaints process that you should follow. I would not recommend majoring on the qualifications of the person conducting the assessment but more on the delay to doing it and on not taking into account all the relevant matters ie past risk history at home.

Also most adult social work teams will have many ‘unqualified’ (wrong qualification rather than none) workers in the team. I’ve worked at my LA for 8 years as one of those and there’s very little difference other than unqualified can’t do a couple of legal things… otherwise same cases.

I’m a social work apprentice and I feel the need to point out that social work apprentices tend to be very experienced workers who have been doing the job a long time before their apprenticeship- don’t confuse it with a 16yo leaving school apprenticeship!

I’m more experienced than many of my qualified colleagues.

Social services can’t afford to fund people in care homes if they don’t have the eligible needs. We are heavily pressured to find the cheapest way for everything. You can submit a complaint usually via the website and that (where I work) usually gets looked at pronto. MP letters less so as they are usually oblivious of the actual law around this!

This is disgusting. As I previously stated, you need to involve someone regarding her capacity. Gather previous and current evidence. Inform S.W. that you wish a case conference. Also, inform them that you will be involving the Care Commission.
Contact your M.p. again....
And keep on doing it until they answer. The stress of all of this is probably pulling her down.
Things may well have changed, but is this really what Social Work has become? I am so pleased that I have written into my own POA that a Psychiatrist must determine my own capacity . I hope this will protect me should I need that.

Please be assertive..
I really have to say that any organisation will close ranks to protect their own.
So be prepared. X

A Social Worker in Training may be in their first weeks of training or weeks away from qualifying. How much they are supervised and how that is done will depend on how close they are to qualifying.

My mother was assessed as not having capacity in about 20 minutes. It might take longer to determine if you DO have capacity rather than conclude you don’t. But two visits and presumably a debrief with a superior after each sounds pretty thorough.

Thank you for your information. Just to say that the S.W.I.T. apparently made two visits on her own. IYO would that allow her capacity to assessed? Amazing how things change.

A capacity assessment is a snapshot of the time it was done. Yes, a history is useful but things that has happened when a person previously lacked capacity does not make the person lack capacity now. Some people have fluctuating capacity day by day (or even hour by hour with diagnoses like Lewy Body) but if the person makes a capacitous decision that should be upheld.

An old age psychiatrist could complete the assessment but as an RMN I could do this, I would expect an adult social worker to also be competent to complete this. When the MCA first came out professionals would expect psychiatrists to complete them but times have moved on.

I can’t see much in any of your posts about what your family member wants. That should be the starting point.

If their not currently drinking to excess to they currently have mental capacity? (I think one of your posts said they did?). If so, and they want to to go home that is what should happen. You cannot stop someone from making an ‘unwise’ decision, going home might be that, getting someone to buy a bottle of whisky might also be that. Hard to accept but unfortunately true.

If then, at a point in the future they lose capacity again then POA will kick in again but their wishes should still be taken to account. I would probably suggest a meeting with the relative, SS and the POAs to discuss what the relative would like to happen if things go tits up again to help the process in the future. Their wishes may not be possible but always the best place to start a plan.

Firstly , Powers of Attorney lay down that the wishes of the person must be ascertained as their past wishes. Do you have financial, welfare or both.

This also applies to Social Workers in training or not.
What does your family member want? AND, what has she told the S.W.I.T.

I agree with The Pure.

Who has now determined that she has capacity at this time. Alcohol Addiction is an illness. She needs a proper assessment, preferably from an Old Age Psychiatrist who has the complete facts of her life before and after her admission. The residential care seems to have helped her avoid relapse. I do not believe she would have the same protection from carers visiting several times a day.
Resident care is not only about the ability to wash and dress. It is also about supporting mental health problems, and giving emotional support.

It would be extremely unfair if she were to be moved, only to break down again.

List all instances of events; ask for her capacity to be determined by a psychiatrist....and once you have all the evidence you need from neighbours , records from previous g.p. records of fire department and hospital,
then ask for a case conference. This should include Psychiatrist, Housing, GP, and a Senior Social Work who has Not been involved in the case. Write to the Care Commission and explain the circumstances.

I really can't believe that they are trying to do this to a person over 80.
Involve your M.P. if all else fails. Good luck.

As @ThePure above has said, however have these above incidents happened due to the alcohol intoxication or capacity issues?

Your Mums living experience and independence will be greatly improved in a supported living vs a residential. Social care and the care act have assessed and to meet their statutory requirements they have determined the level of need, if you want a higher level if need than that then you will need to self fund.

This is a not uncommon situation when the issue is alcoholism as the person will of course function much better and be cognitively better having been away from alcohol. When they get home they will usually go back to it and all the problems start up again.

There is the consideration of public funds and if the person is not currently deemed as having needs that require residential care then social services are required to look at the cheaper options with council budgets as they are.

However I would suspect that capacity and wishes and feelings are also at play here. What does the person concerned want? If they are able to express an opinion, even if not a fully capacitous one, and they want to go home then social care will be pretty duty bound to facilitate that.

Is the LPA for health and welfare or just for finances? Even if it is for health and welfare the social worker can challenge the LPA holders by reporting them to the office of the public guardian if they are deemed not to be acting in the persons best interests.

My advice is to make a document with dates of all the incidents that happened at home; fires, falls, accidents and injuries, wandering out etc as comprehensive as possible (realise this will be time consuming but it’s important) and with any evidence that could back it up eg A&E or GP attendances, police and fire service call outs. Try to find any documents to back it up eg A&E or hospital discharge letters. Ask the GP to write in support of the person being unsafe at home. Ask the neighbours to write statements of what they witnessed when the person was at home. Family members also to write statements of what support they provided and what conditions were like at home. Try to make as factual as possible and less opinion eg ‘there was rotting food and maggots’ rather than ‘it was disgusting’

All you can do in the end is give social care the evident why the person going home is a bad idea. They will of course not want to be responsible for a tragedy or for having to find another placement. They are probably going on what they see now and not taking into account how bad it was at the time and will need to have written evidence from a variety of sources to take that into account

We had this with my mum, a stroke victim who was paralysed.

She was moved to an Extra Care facility. A block of flats which were all occupied by people who needed care or supervision. From people like my mum, to those with learning disabilities etc.

Downstairs there was a care office and a team of carers who only worked within that building. Mum had five visits a day, and a call system to the office/carer on overnight duty should she need help.

We weren't convinced, but she was happy to have her own space and belongings instead of being surrounded by people with Alzheimer's etc.

So if try to find out more about where she'll go. An Extra Care block with resident carers and the right safety equipment is likely to be the best option, and the one you should push for

As POA you can’t insist your relative is in a care home funded by SS. You express what the person would have wanted, but there’s many people having to live at home with daily carer visits because SS won’t fund a CH.

You can be very clear about what you can and can’t do though to support them. The social worker is having to follow a process to determine where your relative is best cared for, so they have to look at the other, cheaper, options if it appears the person is able to live independently.

Supervision for the social worker means they’ll have a lighter case load than one who has completed training, and they’ll review their cases with a supervisor regularly. It doesn’t necessarily mean the supervisor will come to meetings with them.

To answer your question social services make the assessment of capacity and recommendations re levels of care needed for elderly and vulnerable adults. If they say that residential care isn’t needed then the council won’t fund it.

If there isn’t suitable housing locally for your relative then the housing officer may say they disagree with or are surprised by the assessment but they are not the ones who have the final say as they are not social workers. They should be looking for suitable accommodation or putting your relative on a waiting list. The care home may have some input to social workers doing the assessment but social services make the decision. If the relative has capacity the POA is not needed so family can also have some input but are not the decision maker as they relative is not self funding and has capacity.

You mention that the relative lived on the border of two or three districts. Is your relative now in a care home which is in a different district to the one their council house was in? Again this will complicate the decision about which council should pay any care home fees. Are the care home fees currently being paid or are the care home letting them stay there as they expect the council to pay eventually? You may find the care home is forced to give notice to your relative if the fees aren’t paid and they then need to be given emergency housing by the council plus a care package.

This sounds really stressful. All I can add is that it won’t be useful to focus on the assessment being done by a student, because they will have oversight from someone qualified. It sounds like you might need to pile up as much evidence as you can from when they were living at home, especially if there’s issues with different area emergency services being involved.

So social services are saying he/she doesn't need any intervention at all? That they can live unaccompanied with no care or support whatsoever?

I'm not sure how I would deal with that other than complain and keep complaining. Have you got a local carers charity? I would try them as a strong point.