Finding a nursing home and entitlements

[Lilymaid]

My mother is in her 80s and has Parkinson's Disease. She has been in hospital since January after a fall, but the hospital has now concluded that she is not able to return home to live (my father has been her carer). My father needs to find her a nursing home and to know what entitlements she will receive (attendance allowance & assistance with nursing costs) before he starts looking for a NH based on what they can afford. Any advice? He has already fallen out with the care manager who has just told him to get on with it as a matter of urgency!

We've just gone through this with my gran. The home we found cost £650 a week, which is pretty standard. In Scotland - not sure where you are - the element of that 650 which is personal care and nursing care is paid for. That brings the total cost that still has to be paid to about £400 a week. The local authority where your mother lived up until now (ie not necessarily the same one that the home may be in) may pay the first 12 weeks - that's how it works here. If they lived together, your father is entitled to stay in the property, ie it can't be sold to pay care fees. I'm not sure about the sayvings threshold. It may be 8k or so. Help the Aged have a very good advice service where you can get details of benefits etc, and I'm sure the organisation that deals with Parkinsons's will have some good advice. I really feel for you. It's a very stressful time. Hope it all works out.

We are going this at the moment with my great anut who is 85, but has got deminia, have you spoken to the hosipal social worker.

The social worker is being very helpfull in finding out what and where there are nursing home rooms available.

It is slighly different as she is a widow and has just sold her home as moved nearer to the family and into shelted accomdation (she has deteriated very quickly) so she afford to pay for her care.

I would also contact you local social services and ask for help.

HTH

We are in the same situation. My fil has Parkinsons. NH are from about £550 per week upwards. The best advice is to look at as many as you can to see what will suit. I am not sure what the threshold is but I would contact Help the Aged if I were you. My experience of social workers in my FIL case is VERY poor and personally I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them. They have lied to us and then tried to deny it when they were found out. In fact they have made the whole thing much harder than it should be.

Thanks for your advice. My parents had done some planning in advance for this eventuality - in particular to assure that their house couldn't eventually be sold by the local authority at least whilst one of them still could live there. My father doesn't trust the care manager he has seen probably because there was a big scandal in the 80s in his local authority (in the south east) where one of the care managers persuaded vulnerable elderly to sell their houses for a pittance through her boyfriend's agency - she and boyfriend then bought the houses and refurbished them making an enormous profit! I don't think that could happen now, but father knew people who knew people involved then.
I have just downloaded a large number of inspection reports that I shall pass on to him. Some are OK or good, others are fairly sorry reading. I shall tell him to contact the local Parkinson's Society to find someone who can give him advice.

Hi Lilymaid - here's some figures for you if you're in England.
You really should get a social worker involved in your mums placement - they will arrange for a financial assessment to be carried out to see if Local Authority can help with the fees. If your mum has under £21,500 in capital she will be entitled to some help. If your parents jointly have savings only half of that will be taken into account for your mum.
Any capital below £13,000 will be disregarded completely.
With regards to their property it will be completely disregarded from the assessment as your dad will still be living there.
Local Authorities never sell anyones property - it may have to be included in the assessment if the client is the only person living there. But the Local Authority will then assess the client as liable for the full costs. How this is paid is up to the client and family. Unfortunately though, in most cases the only way to fund this is to sell the property.
If your mum needs nursing care rather than just residential then this element will be paid by the health authority (three different bandings depending on the level of care needed).
If she pays her fees herself she will be entitled to Attendance Allowance but if the Local Authority help with funding this payment will stop.
Hope this is of some help to you.

Again, thanks for all your help. The question of finding a nursing home is now slightly less urgent as my mother fell yesterday night in the hospital and has broken her hip (she broke her femur on other side 18 months ago) so she has been transferred from the cottage hospital to the district hospital again. I'd already printed out all the NH inspection reports and passed them to my father and I now have a little more time to work out the financial situation (without delving too much into how much money they do have) as regards attendance allowance and nursing care. I am trying to be very diplomatic wih my father who wants to make the decisions but am doing this living 100 miles away and unable to take time off work so hands on intervention isn't easy.