Social services

[Trixieboo87]

Hi my dad has ongoing health issues and suffered a stroke , social services are involved as he will eventually be put into a care home for 4 week’s assessment he has been in a rehab hospital but 2 days ago was admitted back to hospital with a uti after having his catheter removed .

I have informed the social worker that he’s in hospital but what next ? Rehab wasn’t going well dad was in bed most days , social worker said the paper work for a placement isn’t completed . My dad can’t go home I don’t know what to do the social worker also said that if I place dad back in rehab I’d have to start placement all over again unless I find my own care home , we haven’t even done the financial assessment forms yet as I’m going through my dads finances .
Any advice please ?

I don't understand what the social worker means about you placing your dad in rehab? Surely that's not up to you but up to the hospital? My mum went from hospital to rehab to a nursing home and it was all sorted by the social worker. We could veto the placement (which I did with first one offered) but the rest of it was done by Social Services.

You need to speak the hospital discharge team , when that time comes, as to the level of support he needs. They need to get physio and ot involved to reassess his needs and determine what placement or care package is suitable. It should not be up to you to find a placement but he will need to be medically stable and regain some mobility, so rehab is an intermediate step.

Hi thanks for your replies , yes it would be up to the hospital if they decide to send him back to rehab , he more or less medically fit now and tbh I would like him out of hospital asap as he is vunerable to infection .

I just don’t understand why the social worker said that she hasn’t found a placement yet but paper work is going through but if the hospital send my dad back to rehab the process will need to be started again
What am I to do dad is blocking a bed as everyone keeps saying but it’s all like a merry go round he starts to get better and move on them something else happens

I would suspect placements have to be taken up within a timeframe. If that is delayed the space may be reallocated.

You’re in charge of his finances - is he going to be self funding for the foreseeable future for whatever his care needs turn out to be, or is he l more likely to be state funded?

and is he likely to go straight from hospital to a home, or back to rehab first?

Three different things need to happen here, assuming your area still operates a traditional hospital discharge process rather than the new Discharge to Assess process that is increasingly common.

The social worker needs to do a Care Act assessment and determine the type of residential or nursing care your dad will need once he is medically fit for discharge AND has gone as far as he can for rehab.

Once it is agreed what type of care will be needed the social worker will then need to get agreement from seniors that they approve the funding in principle for that type of care for your dad's needs.

Once the funding has been agreed in principle and an estimated discharge date is known then and only then will the social worker will commence finding out which care homes currently have vacancies and provide the type of care that your dad needs.

The care homes won't hold beds indefinitely and availabilty can change hourly so the social worker won't be looking at placements until all the other things have been done - it sounds like that might be tricky at the moment if he is in and out of hospit.

Some families who self fund can bypass the process and secure a bed at their preferred home in advance by paying for an empty bed until discharge.

Thankyou , I don’t think that he’ll be completely self funding as he doesn’t have enough savings he also lives in a static park home
We’ve only just sent off the financial assessment forms to the local authority as we had to dig through all his paper work .
We was told by the Occupational therapist that he’d go to a residential care home this was before he got hospitalised again .
The social worker is aware that my dads back in hospital
Tbh I’m not sleeping at night worried sick

The financial assessment forms are mostly irrelevant to the rest of the process. The social worker probably won't even know/care about the outcome of the financial assessment beyond it confirming if he is/isn't a self funder.

The placement will still be made when he's ready for discharge even if the finance side of things hasn't been sorted.