To ask about care homes please

[girlfriend44]

Can someone advise. If you can't afford a private care home what happens?
Do the Social services find you one and pay the fee?
Do you get any choice? How does your partner/husband/wife visit you if they don't drive?
Can you request one nearby?
Only know about ones where you pay the fee yourself and then if they have room you can go where you want to go I think?

It depends where you live to some extent. If your loved one is in hospital and needs a nursing home some areas are running q "no choice" policy, if they are medically fit they get discharged to the first suitable care home.
Some homes accept nhs / local authority fees, some charge top up / betterment fees.
What's your specific circumstance?

It depends on where you live as to whether they pay the home directly or you pay and claw the money back. Round here the local authority pays the home directly.

They will take into consideration your request for which home they're put into, where it is, what facilities it has etc., but unfortunately it's kind of pot luck and usually a case of take what you're offered or nothing.

The same with the driving thing, they'll consider your request but it if they can't accomodate it you'll be in a take it or leave it situation again.

They might be able to temporarily house them somewhere until a more ideal place becomes available but you have to weigh up the benefit of a better place against the extra upheaval.

It depends too why they need the care - if the authorities feel it necessary for the person's best interests or their condition makes them a threat to others, they can override the decision of relatives. This is only when there's a good reason though, eg dementia making the person violent.

Yes, if the person has no funds to pay for a care home themselves, Social Services will pay for it. They have to offer at least one placement which can meet the person's needs, and will accept them at local authority fees. You may get a choice, you may not, and the care home(s) may or may not be conveniently located for the relatives to visit. As others have said they will consider requests but it may simply not be possible to find somewhere nearby. It may be possible to move the person later on if a room becomes available in a suitable care home closer to relatives.

My experience is that this varies depending on where you live and is quite difficult to navigate. I would recommend Age Uk as a really useful source of advice.
www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/paying-for-a-care-home/

Do people ever share rooms and bathrooms if they aren't paying privately?

Sharing bathrooms is really common unless the home is new and purpose built.
Some homes do shared bedrooms, but the regulators don't really like it, unless it's for a married couple, a pair of sisters etc.

My mum shared a room for a while, until a single became available. She was completely oblivious and the other occupant looked out for her so it worked out well! The staff were very good at maintaining dignity of both.

So you really only get a private bathroom if your paying privately?

If it’s a relatively new build home, then there may be en suite rooms offered as standard.

Dad couldn’t afford full fees & his local authority paid for his place. We were lucky that he was able to be moved 400 miles closer to us as part of this.

His local authority then did a full financial assessment of his finances (his state pension, 2 very small private pensions) & Dad was allowed to keep £25 per week from his total pension as a personal allowance. The local authority invoiced him monthly to pay the £181 a week they’d calculated he could afford.

With every increase in state pension that was then reflected in an increased fee to be paid to the local authority.

This was 6 years ago (Dad died in May this year), so the situation may be different now.