Putting a parent in a home

[MartySouth]

I have just read somebody yet again talking about an elderly relative being 'put' in a home as if we are still living in Victorian times. You CANNOT 'PUT' AN ADULT IN A CARE HOME!!!!!!

Sorry to shout but:

1. We live in a society where people have the right to decide where they live, this includes very ill people or people with dementia. Nobody else can force somebody to leave their home. It's against the law.

1. Even if somebody and/or their family WANTS them to move into a care home the council will very rarely allow this because the council can't afford it. This has been the case for a LONG TIME! Social workers will strongly resist people being moved out of their homes because councils can't afford to pay for residential care. if necessary the council will pay for home care visits but they will NOT move somebody into a care home unless the situation is really very dire AND the person agrees.

Of course, if you can afford to pay for private residential care the council won't be involved but still, no care home will accept somebody who doesn't want to be there.

I have found all this out to great cost. My father has dementia and lives several hours from me. he was unsafe living on his own and had many accidents. The whole situation was also incredibly expensive and draining for me as we could not afford a private care home but the council absolutely refused to entertain the idea of funding residential care even after he fractured his hip.

Please can people stop talking about 'putting people in a home' ?

You've taken the wind out of my sails; when I saw your thread title I was all ready to give you a verbal bashing! I completely agree with you.

Puting in a care home does happen sometimes when you have been manipulated, coerced or previously gave permission for someone to handle your affairs. It also happens when there is interest in the property. Lets not pretend it doesnt happen. And there are times when adult children exaggerate or want to be freed from guilt and inconvenience of looking after parents by placing them in a 247 care home so they parents are someone elses problem.. when in reality, adaptations, adjustments or paid carers are the more appropriate level for their parents. It's naive to say it doesnt happen.

Also remember people from allover use this site its not just UK folks.

Thanks knittedfairies!

I will also add that often it's really clear that somebody would be safer, less lonely and better cared for if they were in residential care but you still can't decide that for them, and even if THEY agree it's more or less impossible to get social services to pay for it and if you pay for yourself it's about £5,000 per month.

I wish people knew this. I guess that every day of the year people are discovering this for the first time when it happens to their family.

Hip fracture and falls are common in older people doesnt mean they need residential care

It’s only evil money-grabbing offspring who want their parent(a) paying £5k a month (each) to be in a care home.
Clearly.

It wouldn't make sense to force somebody into a care home because you have an interest in their property. Everybody who has a property has to PAY for their care and care costs £5,000 pm. Not only that but it's not as if the sale of a home puts money into somebody else's pocket. The money still belongs to the elderly person.

I am sorry to hear about your father. My beloved father’n’law had dementia and Parkinsons. It got so bad he was wandering around during the night at home and would slip over and not be able to get up. Sadly he could be on the floor for hours until his wife woke up. But being she was elderly she would have to phone for help to lift him. You are right - could still not get him a place in a care home...until his wife asked for a 1 week break which the nhs had to provide her - and the during that 1 week she showed she could not cope with him at home and they then let him stay.

If you want to get money from an elderly relative the smart thing is to make sure they stay at home. The council will pay for care and you get to inherit the full value of the property. As soon as an elderly person moves into a care home you say goodbye to your inheritance.

often it's really clear that somebody would be safer, less lonely and better cared for if they were in residential care but you still can't decide that for them

You can if a Lasting Power of Attorney has been put in place. I’d argue LPAs need to be much more common knowledge.

So many people really don't understand the process. When my dad was left alone and struggling to cope after my mum died - he had dementia, and while he didn't have specific physical disabilities he was frail - the number of people who said to me 'wouldn't he be better in a home?' as if I could click my fingers and make it happen was amazing. I am convinced they thought I was just not arsed enough. No idea of the processes to be gone through to see if he had capacity, the back and forth with social services about his ability to manage at home, and the fact that he kept saying 'I'm fine' when he very evidently wasn't but it suited the local authority to accept that at face value.

@MartySouth The council will pay for care at home - though if the person has savings that comes into the equation.

@UhKevin agree about LPAs, but they take time to set up, and either the person has to agree anyway to activate it or they have to be judged as having lost capacity before you can use it. That's often the sticking point.

Gooseberry agree, it’s only one step. We had a similar experience to you. All very difficult and awful.

Even with an LPA, the person who granted it (assume they are elderly) is still allowed to make 'bad' decisions IF they are judged as having capacity to understand the decision they are making.

Take my MIL. She granted LPA to DH shortly before being diagnosed with dementia. Mobility issues led to a fall and hospital. They couldn't make her better so where was she to go? She wanted to go home, immobile though she now was. Medics disagreed about whether she had capacity or not, in relation to this single issue. An independent assessment took place. DH's opinion was not sought, which is correct. The assessment concluded she did not have capacity, and only then was DH asked where he wanted her to go. Taking medical opinion into account he opted for a nursing home. (she was livid, but that's another story!). It was the only place that could provide the care she needed.

My dad went out of his way to inform friends and wider family that he made the decision (as he did, but with our help and support) to move into a care home. This was 18 months or so after my mum died, after 60+ years of marriage and even though we went out of our way to visit and help him, he was beginning to lose his physical and cognitive abilities (through stress and loneliness).
We found him a fabulous place and he was very happy there, until he died of cancer, mercifully a few months before Covid took off.

You can't just do it even with a Lasting Power of Attorney. You would need to get a Deprivation of Liberty Order, the problem being that you sometimes need to get them into the home first. I have LPA for an elderly relative and I did get her into a home and yes what was to be my inheritance is being spent at a rate of £6k a month.

By the way the council won't pay for home care unless they do a financial assessment and you qualify for the help.

I know the council will only pay for care if you qualify but lots of people qualify. My father did. If he had stayed at home I would have protected all the money I am due to inherit. However, I care about him and home care visits were just not enough. He wasn't safe and he was lonely.

POAs are really not as easy to exercise as you think. You may read about evil grasping relatives in newspapers but in reality people are very well protected against coercion, which is just as it should be.

The nhs will pay for care (called Continuing Health Care, CHC) IF the elderly person is extremely unwell - but the threshold is very high.
We eventually managed to secure it for my dad for the last 3 months or so of his life, but he died in September, but it has only just been finalised and paid out this week. It was a torturous process applying, and not for the faint-hearted. You need loads of evidence form a whole range of agencies.

My dad had to go into a home as my mum really couldn't cope with his worsening dementia anymore - he was starting to lash out at her if she stopped him doing anything. Her health and wellbeing deteriorated badly.
Social services were called and they found an emergency respite placement for my dad in a care home. The social worker came to pick him up to take him but said if he didnt agree to go, then she couldn't make him.
Fortunately, he was in an agreeable mood at the time and said yes he would go - even though he didnt really know where he was going or what was happening.

It's really difficult to exercise POA and it's even more difficult to get NHS to pay for CHC. The whole thing is difficult!

My main point is you can't just 'put someone in a home' partly because peoples' right are protected (good thing) and because affordable residential care is so hard to come by (bad thing). It's been that way for many years now but people still talk as if we are in the 1950s and you could ask a social worker to put your nan in a free council care home and keep her house and pension. You just can't, and it doesn't happen that way.

It's the same when people talk about 'putting someone in a mental hospital'. But that's a whole other thread.

So what do you suggest for a person who has bad enough dementia that they’re no longer safe to be left alone at all, are likely to burn the house down, and having hidden all the door keys, won’t be able to get out? Who refuses to wash and/or change dirty, smelly clothes?

Who has forgotten how to use the phone, or repeatedly hides it so that they can’t find it? (Or thinks the TV remote is the phone and then complains that it’s not working?). Who is repeatedly locking themselves out, including at night time in winter, in their night clothes?

Who can no longer even make themselves a cup of tea, yet despite all the above, still genuinely thinks there is nothing wrong with them? (Because they can’t remember that they can’t remember anything).

Almost anyone, with or without dementia, will say, if asked, that they don’t want to go into a care home, but when the sort of 24/7 care the person now needs can’t be provided any other way, it may be the only practical option.

We ‘put’ our (self funded) mother into a very good care home, because it was the only place she could receive the 24/7 care she needed. And no, she wasn’t happy at first.
During her first weeks there she would angrily accuse us of only putting her there because we were after her money - very hollow laugh. If we’d been after her money we’d have left her at home, in increasing squalor, and all too liable to burn the house down, with herself in it.

You can put someone in a home, as long as you have LPA and people on hand to section them if they kick off. If the elderly person is insane/demented it happens, very sadly.

Often what happens is that oldster has a fall, ends up in hosp, and can't go home. Assessments take place on the ward. Or their spouse won't take them back (ditto). Or the family can't provide 24/7 medical care (ditto).

No one in their right mind could put someone in a home 'for money' - they're £8k a month round here.

The one person I know who refused to put her DF in a home, despite the NHS recommending it (rare), ended up with DF in her sitting room on a trolley for five years. He had no physical or mental function, bar a heartbeat, and it nearly killed her.

Martysouth, in the 1950s very few nan's had a house, or anything more than a state pension!

In the 1980s, my mother, who lived 300 miles from us, developed dementia. She lived in the private rented flat she moved into with my dad when they were married in the 1930s. She was widowed in her 50s, and had few savings and just a state pension. We had children at school, we both worked but didn't earn a great deal, so no spare bedroom, no money to extend or move. Mum had home helps for a while, but eventually went into a local authority care home, and later a nursing home where she died in her late 80s.

More than 20 years since she died, I still carry guilt. No choice is perfect, I'd have loved to live round the corner, so we could have helped more. If she'd moved into sheltered accommodation when I suggested it (it was available but she didn't want to) it would probably have delayed her need for a care home. DH and I are now a couple in our 70s, and see it as our responsibility to make decisions for the future. We don't have big pensions, we own a modest home. It's not enough to pay for a retirement property, so the plan is to try and rent from a housing association, in some sort of extra care or sheltered flat or bungalow, near to one of our children. By selling our home, paying the rent and for care, won't be an issue.

It means when one of us dies, the other will have family reasonably close. Less stress for them, and peace of mind for the family generally. We've loosely discussed it, and hopefully we can achieve it within the next few years, or sooner if one of us becomes less healthy.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER this is exactly the situation I had with my father. Exactly this. We all (including my father) really suffered.

I don't know what the answer is. I just wanted to say that people who haven't experienced this sometimes imagine that if a relative is troublesome or you fancy some of their money you can get them to live in a care home. And, obviously you can't.

@Gran22 I don't think you would be likely to get a housing association sheltered property when you have proceeds of the sale of your own house!These places are like gold dust.Not to derail the thread as I experienced the care system with my mother,and like you still carry the guilt.