Self funding - but only for a matter of weeks?

[OhPleaseJustLast]

I’m hoping some with experience can advise! Following an incident where df, who has dementia, pushed my dm who fell and hit her head (police and ambulance involved) the family agrees it is time to look into a care home (they currently have home care). They have some savings, which I calculate will last around 10 weeks before they hit the local authority threshold. The local authority, because they have savings, have just said they are self funding, that they won’t do a financial assessment until they hit the threshold, and to basically sort ourselves out. But surely if he’s going to be in a residential setting a matter of weeks before they have to get involved it makes sense for them to be involved from the start? The care home want proof of 2 years’ fees, which we obviously can’t provide….the whole situation seems insane, should I be pushing adult social care to be more involved, or what?

@OhPleaseJustLast
If it’s clear that your mum is no longer able to look after him, even with carers coming on 4x daily, then a social worker cannot force him to be returned home. The fact that there has been a serious incident, where he hurt your mum, which involved the police should be enough evidence that he can no longer remain at home and be safe. Social services would only say he should return home if he is deemed to have capacity to make an appropriate decision. My MIL had many falls, and had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She was in a rehab unit for some weeks to recover from a particularly bad fall and her social worker said that as she still had capacity she could go home with 4x daily carer visits. This was despite us being very concerned that she would fall and be seriously hurt or worse. We were overruled by SS and she returned home. Within 5 days she had had 5 falls during the night which we had to go and help her with, then 1 further fall where she cut her head open and was found by her morning carer. She was hospitalised, and never returned home, spending the next 6 months in a home before dying.
Getting old is grim.

[quote OhPleaseJustLast]@Soontobe60 that’s pretty much word for word what I was told a few months back when my mum had a medical crisis and couldn’t care for either of them for a short time. You’re self funding, sort yourself out. So we got private home care.

And that’s basically the message I’ve been given today as well. You’re self funding, sort yourself out. The difference is that we haven’t had that care needs assessment, for social services to agree he needs residential care now. My worry is that we’ll ‘sort ourselves out’, do what we think is best, and then when the money runs out, social services won’t agree it’s best and will want him to come home. And if the situation isn’t safe now, I can tell you that that would 100% not be safe, because he would be super unsettled, and therefore volatile, so I want to avoid that at all costs. I’d like to think it’s unlikely, but I’ve had a baptism of fire with social services in the last few months and I’ve come to understand the bar is pretty low (and I understand why, I can’t let myself think in ‘should bes’, just what is and what isn’t).[/quote]
Your mum needs to refuse to have him returned to the home.

Not correct. When my MIL needed to go into full time care, she didn’t have capacity. Her POA hadn’t come through either. (they lost the initial application causing a 3 month delay during which time she deteriorated). Following a needs assessment, we were told to look at the homes in our area, check if they took residents who were LA funded, and basically decide for ourselves.
My stepfather is currently in hospital awaiting placement in residential care. He will be self funding for a short time as he has about 30k in savings plus a small private pension. He does not have capacity, no POA and my mum doesn’t have capacity either. We are currently looking for a care home and the social worker has given us a list of homes that may have places to meet his needs. A mix of LA run homes and private ones

I am correct.

What you have described is very poor practice. I absolutely believe what you have written is true, but local authorities are so stretched they regularly aren't operating within the law and are turning a blind eye to families/ care homes that aren't too.

If someone doesn't have capacity and no one has LPoA for them for health and welfare then the state becomes the decision maker about any major change in circumstance regardless of what money that person has in the bank.

Just because many families aren't aware of this, the care homes don't challenge them (they get more money a week from self funders) and social services often turn a blind eye (paperwork) if they are self funders doesn't mean its actually lawful.

9 times out of 10 relatives are making good decisions with the best intentions and its fine. But sometimes its not and thats why we are supposed to have checks and balances in place to ensure that we aren't allowing people to be unlawfully deprived of their liberty.

But can she? Some of the previous posters seem to have implied that if he co-owns the home and says he wants to go home (which he will) then social services might say he has to. I mean, they can’t make her care for him, but even if I take her out of the situation (which isn’t fair on her, she deserves to be able to stay in her home and still feel safe), they might decide he can go home with carers visiting 4 times a day. And it would fail, of course it would. But in the process, he might come to harm. And he’s my dad. How am I supposed to sit by and watch that happen? Part of me thinks that they couldn’t possibly decide he was safe to go home. But like I said, it seems to be a pretty low bar.

Sorry, that was in response to the previous poster’s comment ‘ Your mum needs to refuse to have him returned to the home.’

From what hatgirl has written, the answer is no. She can’t refuse to have him home unless they agree it isn’t safe.

Actually Soontobe60 i've just re-read what you wrote - I suspect that the needs assessment social services completed was their agreement/ best interests decision that your mum required residential care.

It might not have been made clear to you that the best interests decision had happened if it was clear you were in agreement, but it will have happened.

I missed the bit originally where you said that there had been a needs assessment, so social services were involved in making that decision weren't they, and then gave you the info as self funders to make the placement yourselves?

From what hatgirl has written, the answer is no. She can’t refuse to have him home unless they agree it isn’t safe

She can refuse to care for him. She can't refuse to let him back into his own house.

If its not safe for him to go home unless she is providing care for him then its vanishingly unlikely that social services will say he must stay at home.

The safeguarding has only been closed on the basis that he is going into residential care. If it looks likes that is not going to happen then get the safeguarding team back involved.

and if it had come across my desk I wouldn't have closed the safeguarding until I knew a date and time had been arranged for move to happen

You just need to make a nuisance of yourself at adult social care I'm afraid. We are busy but if its clear a family aren't coping and something needs to happen now we do try and get to it as quickly as possible. Ring tomorrow, the earlier in the week you can speak to someone the better.

@hatgirl

Actually Soontobe60 i've just re-read what you wrote - I suspect that the needs assessment social services completed was their agreement/ best interests decision that your mum required residential care.

It might not have been made clear to you that the best interests decision had happened if it was clear you were in agreement, but it will have happened.

I missed the bit originally where you said that there had been a needs assessment, so social services were involved in making that decision weren't they, and then gave you the info as self funders to make the placement yourselves?

That was my understanding too. And the part that’s different for us. We haven’t had that needs assessment / best interests decision yet.

Ok, this is all really helpful, thank you everyone. I’ve asked for a re-assessment of needs earlier today, and a financial assessment. When that happens I guess we need to be 100% clear that my mum does not feel safe, that we do not believe the situation to be safe for him either, and that she cannot provide care any longer. The safeguarding referral should help with that, I would hope? Even if it’s closed, it was closed on the basis we were looking at residential care.

I suspect that if we did choose to do self funded respite that he would likely deteriorate further.(I hate that we would be the cause of that btw but - forcing myself to be pragmatic and all that). I think it’s unlikely he would be deemed to have capacity and safe to come home against my mum’s wishes. But unlikely is not the same as won’t, and the risk of that happening, and the consequences of him coming home unsettled, seems worse than waiting and hoping adult social care agree residential care is the best outcome. And if they don’t agree, then I guess the question to ask is what will they be putting in place to keep my mum safe, and him safe.

Thank you @hatgirl. Thankfully making a nuisance of myself is something I’m good at!

[quote OhPleaseJustLast]@EssaysOfElia

You are right that you need to be practical but be aware if your dad wants to go home, and he part owns the house with your mum, it can be difficult as social services will likely say he should go back to his home.

Would they say this even if she said she didn’t feel safe and off the back of the incident yesterday where he pushed her and she fell and hit her head? A safeguarding referral was opened, which was closed today on the basis that I said we were looking at moving him to a care home.

I ask without judgement or accusation, by the way - I know that we’re in an impossible situation trying to balance the best interests of both of them. Just trying to figure out how the decision would be made.[/quote]
It’s difficult because it’s your dads home too so most likely a best interest decision will need to be made. The local authority may do this and with the safeguarding, it’s possible they’ll agree he can’t go home.

I would suggest you take it one step at a time and be prepared to keep challenging decisions on your mums behalf.

I think your parents are allowed to make provision each for a gift of £3000 in this tax year 2021-2022 and the tax year immediately proceeding, so 2020-21 which will not count in their final figure. If they have not done this then you can reduce their funds by £6k each. What you are describing is the gift allowance for inheritance tax purposes. It’s quite irrelevant to the care financial assessment. If you’ve given away £3000 when you could reasonably expect you might need it for care, the LA can regard it as deliberate deprivation of assets and carry out the assessment as if the £3000 were still available to you.

When my dad came out of hospital a couple of months ago we were having difficulty finding a care agency with capacity to take on his 4 visits a day (self funded). We were able to get SS to take on the arrangements for a fee and they invoice us. It has some advantages - e.g. the hourly rate is a bit lower than we were being quoted and they were able to find an agency to take him on. I suspect that some agencies prefer the admin of dealing with 1 local authority rather than umpteen individuals/families. We paid £400 upfront which considering we had spent several unsuccessful days searching already didn't seem unreasonable and £20 a month admin fee. It certainly saved an awful lot of hassle for us and might be worth enquiring about to sort a residential placement.

@MereDintofPandiculation
What you are describing is the gift allowance for inheritance tax purposes. It’s quite irrelevant to the care financial assessment. If you’ve given away £3000 when you could reasonably expect you might need it for care, the LA can regard it as deliberate deprivation of assets and carry out the assessment as if the £3000 were still available to you.
No Mere I am describing what I was told by the finance officer who did the assessment for my parent.

@mum5net I think your finance officer had it wrong or you have a kindly council. I'm pretty sure Mere is correct. A lot of people get confused between the 2 even people who ought to know better.

@Mum5net In that case the LA has decided to use the IHT allowances as a guide to what is reasonable spending compared with what is deprivation of assets. It would be unwise to assume all LAs use the same criterion.

[quote Mum5net]@MereDintofPandiculation
What you are describing is the gift allowance for inheritance tax purposes. It’s quite irrelevant to the care financial assessment. If you’ve given away £3000 when you could reasonably expect you might need it for care, the LA can regard it as deliberate deprivation of assets and carry out the assessment as if the £3000 were still available to you.
No Mere I am describing what I was told by the finance officer who did the assessment for my parent.[/quote]
We were told differently by the person who did father and mother in laws financial assesment. He was very helpful and told us about the being allowed to pay for funeral costs but giving away £3k without very good reason (a wedding or a very significant birthday for example) would have been seen as deprivation of assets. )

Some Councils are more kindly than others. Assessment was over six year ago so I suppose Councils now under far greater pressure than before.
I will hold back giving that piece of info in future but I'd still suggest if you are within touching distance of the amount it would be worth arguing.

My in laws assessment was last summer so fairly recent