Hi all. This is really on behalf of my mother, and relates to my grandmother.
She currently has 3 care visits per day at home. Recently her local authority changed from one care agency to another. This is not ideal because she is very confused (early stages of dementia) and the care from the new agency is not very good (example - three visits in a row missed, Granny found in morning lying in her day clothes on the sitting room floor having not been fed for a whole day and not been taken to bed that night, no knickers, ambulance called, low blood sugar ).
Now my mother is looking into getting direct payments from the local authority so she can re-employ the old agency carers.
The queries are though:
1)If you choose to go with a different agency is there a worry that she would miss out on emergency care from the local authority if necessary? By this I mean, should granny need respite care, would the local authority have effectively got rid of their responsibility for her by my mother opting out of the day to day care provided by the athority's agency.
- Is it likely that there would be a financial shortfall by the local authority paying less (making the opting out option less attractive) so putting the onus on the family to make up the difference?
Basically we were just interested in whether anyone on Mumsnet had gone down the direct payment route and how it had worked out for them.
Many many thanks!