Adult social care question

[queenofthenorth3]

I’m looking for advice regarding an elderly grandparent who has had a dementia diagnosis. He is in his nineties and still living alone with help from my mum and myself - however I work full time and have dc so my capacity to help out is fairly limited. My mother also has mental health issues and isn’t very proactive in getting help from the relevant services. She helps him with practical things like shopping and cleaning but I don’t believe she always helps much with his condition. For example she will argue with him about things when he is confused and get upset in front of him which seems to confuse him more. It’s very sad to see.

He has been resistant to carers going in and doesn’t want to go into any sort of care home which I understand. But it is getting to the stage where things are becoming unmanageable for example he is wandering around outside and talking nonsense to people. He sometimes forgets my grandmother died 5 years ago and goes looking for her around the house. I don’t believe he is safe to be on his own all of the time and while my mum spends quite a bit of time there she can’t be there all of the time.

I was thinking of phoning adult social care for some advice since my mum won’t do it. But I don’t want to overstep. They have had a referral before and someone came to the house but nothing really came of it however I don’t believe my mum pushed for it and things have escalated with him since then. I’m quite clueless about this but can see he needs help. Does anyone have any advice of where to begin or what might be available?

Hi OP, sorry you're going through this. If you look up your area plus carers hub, it should show you your local service supporting family carers, and you can do the same with local dementia services. They can help you with information and advice and navigating assessments with ASC if you want to talk it through with someone first.

It does sound like it's time to speak to ASC if he's wandering and not able to keep himself safe 💐

Also, I don't think you'd be overstepping - you would be advocating for him to get the help he needs so he can be safe.

I think the issue is I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I believe as a minimum he should have a carer going in daily even if it’s just to check up on him. My mum isn’t able to go every single day and I think just having someone call by would be beneficial for him. But he is against it as he doesn’t think he needs it and doesn’t want to pay.
My mum seems to think they can keep plodding along as they are but is also becoming increasingly stressed with the situation.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t know what you are looking for - that’s the job of social services, to ask the questions and make suggestions/offer support.

Do you know what his financial situation is - would this be state funded care (if he has savings of £23k or less) or would he be self-funding? (Whether he owns his home or not doesn’t matter).

If your grandad is starting to wander and is confused, he's really not safe to be left alone. It sounds like the time for carers visits has passed and he needs residential care. It's very common for elderly people to resist this but if his care needs demand it, I think you have to do what he needs as apposed to what he wants. You need to speak to Adult Social Care to arrange a full assessment of his needs.