I hope the hive mind can help me, and I wonder if others have similar situations.
A relative of mine is in her 90's. I am not immediate family but her only relative within feasible travelling distance (about 20 minutes in car on a clear run) and I am the only person she could realistically ask. She lives by herself in sheltered housing; the warden there has been very good asking local minimarkets and pharmacies to come and do deliveries etc. I'm fairly certain that keeping her supplied with food and medicine is not a problem.
The problem is that she still banks in the 1930s. Never mind not using online banking - she doesn't even use cards or cheques. Despite my harping on about it for the last 20 years, she still shuffles to the bank once a month with a passbook and draws out hundreds of pounds on the basis of a signature to buy groceries, and so on. She does have a current account, solely to pay her rent by direct debit, but she transfers money in-branch to that as needed and she is frightened of the card. I'm not even sure it's a full debit card or that she knows what the PIN is.
Needless to say, she is running out of cash and has asked me to take her to the bank. Both of the branches she goes to have closed.
Her Plan A: She suggested I take her passbook to another branch and draw some money out. Like hell is any bank is going to humour that idea.
My Plan B: I'm going to suggest she phones the bank's helpline and ask them to transfer money from her passbook account where it's sitting to her current account so that the rent gets paid and she stands at least a fighting chance of using her card for contactless payment if not its full functionality. But she gets very flustered on the phone and I'm far from confident that she'll be able to explain what she wants done. And she'd still rather have cash in her hands.
I need a Plan C. I could easily transfer some of my own money to her current account. I know I'd get it back eventually and it's manageable for us for maybe a couple of months, but not much longer, but I actually have little faith she be able to work out her account number and sort code accurately and tell me over the phone. Naturally, I'd rather not physically go and see her and I am not certain it would be permissible anyway.
Or, I could physically take her to a branch, but I can't see how that would be remotely sensible in the circumstances. As a nuclear option I could invoke the LPA I hold, but that's not really what it's for and the consequences of that when she would still be able to function herself are unclear.
Any suggestions?