Powers of Attorney

[mumdebump]

First time on the Elderly parents topic - but I fear it may not be the last :(
My poor dad has been very confused & unsteady at times in the last month or so and has just been diagnosed with brain tumours. We're seeing the specialist medical team next week to see what treatment options are possible. Fortunately he still seems to have enough mental capacity at present to deal with setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney.
He and my mum are seeing their solicitors on Tuesday to set up LPAs for both of them. I can understand the need for a financial/property LPA if I need to step in and sort out banking etc if either loses capacity but I'm not sure if they need to set up the health/welfare LPA too. I'm their only child and as next of kin, wouldn't I be consulted by medical staff or social services on health/welfare issues? Totally new to all of this so would love any advice please. Has anyone ever had to act on a health/welfare LPA and in what circumstances? Thanks.

Really sorry to hear this. My Mum has Dementia and there was a dispute about the level of care she needed. I was in agreement with SS but my Brother wasn't . Due to the situation as she had lost capacity she effectively was a ward of SS. My Brother wasn't allowed to remove her from the CH she was in and was threatened with the Court of Protection if he didn't stick to what ever decision was made at a Best Interests meeting. In the event he circumvented this with a further capacity assessment.

This was because there wasn't a Health and Welfare LPA in existence, though one is now in to be registered done in the time she regained capacity. Our situation was a bit extreme and not helped by the dispute between myself and Brother. However I have read other posts on boards where SS were wanting a specific care package against family wishes and without the LPA they don't have any say.

I understand a H &W can be over ruled in some circumstances but they can be useful. I've heard of medical staff not consulting family members as no LPA in place. Also, though difficult, the act of drawing one up makes it clear to everyone what the person's wishes are in various situations. I think they are worth doing.

I should say that my Mother's case was extreme and mostly due to him being abroad, not having seen her for 5 years, not returning. I found all the professionals involved to be sensible and reasonable and they did consult me and listen to my opinions.

I am a health professional and deal with this sort of situation every day.

If a person has lost capacity and there is no LPA then decisions must be made in their best interests - which would always involve consulting you.

If you were the LPA for welfare you could make decisions as if you were your parent. But those decisions must be demonstrably in your parent's best interest.

As you can see, there is not a lot of difference between the 2 situations. The other thing I would suggest you consider is the emotional burden on yourself of being an attorney.

I have one for my mum because I feel I know about healthcare, how to navigate the system and pretty much what scenarios will come up and how she would react in them - for me having the LPA is reassuring.

However I have seen people with them who were utterly unprepared and now their parent was dying were in complete agonies over whether or not they were making the right decisions. For them they would have been better not having the LPA as they were fully consulted with but would have found it emotionally easier not being the decision-maker. On this basis when my husband and I did finance ones for each other, we didn't do welfare as I think I could easily do his but he would find it very hard to be mine.

In real life, most people don't have powers of attorney for welfare and the same decisions get made at the same speed with or without them, more or less. As an only child you are spared all the disagreeing siblings scenarios as well. I'd say it's a personal choice depending on what is going to make you feel the most secure about what happens to your parents.

Thank you both. There is so much to think about and it has all come up so very suddenly. Dad went from being mildly absent-minded and forgetful to almost completely incoherent in conversation in a matter of a few weeks. Meds have helped significantly and he can at least now make an LPA so at least we are lucky to have been given the opportunity to discuss things.
To be honest I don't know how I feel about making health and welfare decisions on my parents behalf. I'm finding it difficult to think up scenarios as I have next to no experience of such things & I am a novice when it comes to navigating the healthcare system.
The finance stuff is the easy bit in comparison.

I am also a health care professional, i have financial POA but not health and welfare. Obviously we don't know what the future holds, but I feel quite comfortable. I believe these days most medical decisions are made with best iterests at heart. I can;t really anticipate a situation where i would desperately want to challenge a decision. In my Dad's case, with dementia, I have come across families wanting gastrostomy feeding where medical teams do not want to provide it (and increasingly, if the family is insistent/ articulate enough, they get it even without POA). But if Dad has severe dementia, i don't think I'd want a tube for him. However, the financial POA is useful virtually on a daily basis.I'd be up the proverbial without it.

And to echo Kundry, sometimes you don't want to have to make those awful decisions, you just want to be a daughter.

Thank you. The solicitor came out to their house this morning & we decided just to go with the finance & property LPAs and not the health & welfare ones.

The solicitors will draft them and send them to my parents to check and then come out again to get signatures before sending them on to the OPG for registration. Hope my dad's can get registered quickly enough to be of use - his rate of decline is quite alarming. :(