Self Funded Care?

[LillyHammer]

My mum has sadly been diagnosed with dementia. I live 300 miles away and there is no other family near her, although she has friends and attends a day care hospital 2 days a week.

We are at the point of mum needing some help and the social care worker has been trying to organise someone for an hour per day. There is a long waiting list and no one available at present and the social worker has asked me if I would be interesting in "self funded care" which means the council pays me/my mum money for us to find someone to help mum.

My initial view is that this is not a good idea as

1. I am not there to manage things
2. I really feel in mum's circumstances that she needs to be under the social work "umberella"

Does anyone have any knowledge of this system?

I may not be able to reply immediately as I'm working but will check when I can.

Sorry to hear about your mum Lilly.

My mum was self-funded without a social worker (my choice, I didn't feel that there was any benefit to her) and I visited lots of homes in her area before picking the one that I felt was best for her. I was around 70 miles away though so could visit regularly.

Would now be a good time to move her closer to you?

Wherever you decide is the best location for her to live, perhaps you could visit some homes to see what the standard is, costs etc and get a feel for the 'system'.

Best of luck with everything.

Jean - thanks for the response. Mum isn't at the "going in to a home" stage yet and I hope that won't happen for a long long time. At the moment she needs home visits to ensure that she takes her medications etc.

She wouldn't move away from her home so I need to make things as safe (and easy) for her as possible.

FIL decided to do self funded care. It all got a bit messy with him ending up with tax bills and all sorts as he became classed as an "employer".

Im sure if he had drawn up proper contracts with his carers stating they were self employed and needed to pay their own tax and ni payments it would have been fine, but I wouldn't recommend it without serious thought.

Apologies Lilly. I mis-read your post.

I hope you find the support you need.

My mother self-funds her care (I think she's over the threshold for funded care anyway). We organised it ourselves (with the help of the manager at the sheltered accommodation where she lives). I don't have experience of being under the social services umbrella, but can certainly recommend doing it yourself - I can contact the agency with any queries or requests, I get regular updates and things work efficiently. It's expensive, but worth it for peace of mind.

Freckled, I'm sorry I probably haven't made things clear in my original message.

Mum is in Scotland so I don't know if the situation is different from where you are but there if the Social Work dept can't provide someone to visit an elderly person in need in their own house then they give the elderly person (my mum) funds so that she/I can pay for a private person to visit and help my mum.

I think don't think this would work because I am so far away. I'm wondering if anyone under the Scottish system has any views?

Thanks anyway for your input.

Is this the same as 'Direct Payments'? I have that system - I can use some of the money to pay an accountant :)

www.ageuk.org.uk/ have been fantastic help for my dad whose partner has dementia - great advice and support

I've just checked and it's called "self directed support" www.selfdirectedsupportscotland.org.uk/directing-your-own-support/