Not spending attendance allowance

[SwearsBySomething]

I'll try to keep it brief D(!)M has been in receipt of attendance allowance for some years now. Only family is myself and my brother, my brother has been no contact with her for 2 years now. Awfully abusive childhood. Would love to go no contact myself but I just can't do it. Anyway, she is hugely dependant on me, I basically sort everything, I've just spoken to gp again yesterday for reassessment for dementia. She drains the life out of me. I'm a single parent, with a young one still at home, in a job that also sucks the life out of me and fucking exhausted. She is well off in terms of money coming in monthly, plus savings, not rich by any means at all, but her money in bank just keeps going up with pension etc. She expects me to take her to hospital gp appts etc which can take hours, all of which means I am losing out on those hours for pay as i'm self employed. She might offer me £10 for fuel for a 60mile round journey. Yes I resent it. She said to me the other day she was thinking of giving me £100 a month for the help I do. I have told her repeatedly that her attendance allowance is for paying for the help she needs, but she doesn't, just expects me to do it. I think her attendance allowance is about £100 per week. Whilst I appreciate the thought, I am worried she will become even more demanding, but also frankly I think it should be £300 a month which would make absolutely no difference to her per month. Am I unreasonable to think this. I feel like new year I need to reduce my working hours/demands on my life as I am struggling and going under mental health wise due to competing demands and pressures

You should reduce your time with your DM before you reduce your work which is your livelihood. While you are willing todo all the running around, she has no incentive to accept paid help.

I wouldn’t be going to appointments that didn’t need me there to listen to diagnoses and options for treatment. Even 80 year old DH goes to scans and similar on his own, I only go to take notes when treatment options are being discussed.

You need to step away from this and repeat that she needs to organise her own transport (taxi) using her attendance allowance.

Do you get on with your brother? Can you enlist him to support you?

I had similar with my dad. He just didn't understand money as he got older and like a lot of his generation hated spending money on himself.. he was always v generous with my mum or me.

I used it to make my live easier tbh. I bought extra clothes and bedding to make the turnarounds easier. Bought him nice ready meals from Marks, paid a gardener. Paid for chiropody visits, and eye tests. If there was anything he considered a luxury I told him the government had paid from his taxes (I know, but it stopped the battle for me).

Can you claim carers allowance? It might reduce her pension credit if she gets a severe disability benefit on that but that is a discusssion you would need to have. I work with a lot of elderly and help them claim AA and loads just let it build up in the bank then complain about struggling without help. For a £100 a week she could buy a good few hours care from a home help from somewhere like Age uk.

Her attendance allowance will be around £60. My mum doesn't get the full amount despite being unable to do anything for herself as she is catheterised abd they deem doesn't need care in the night even though she could not be left alone.

It seems to be very hit and miss who gets the higher rate. I do loads of these AA forms for work and loads of people get higher rate with very little needs at night. I am really shocked by some of the people who get awarded higher rate.

I've never understood how FIL managed to get the higher rate. MIL needed 24/7 care so ot was clear why she got it. FIL also managed to get it despite it being him being mail carer for MIL & doing all the night time care for her. But we had to battle to get it for my nearly blind dad with restricted mobility despite him needing help for frequent loo visits in the night evidenced by multiple wee hour ambulance calls when he tried by himself, fell and then mum couldn't get him back up.

My theory ( after helping with hundreds of these forms) is that they seem to give higher rate to most over 85's. I think they think that decline is inevitable so it saves them having to re-assess a couple of years down the line for the higher rate ! I'm baffled by the number that get awarded higher rate. Many times I have ticked nothing in the night time care section and they still get awarded higher rate. I had one client ring me distressed last week as she had been awarded higher rate and couldn't understand it as she said she was fine at night. She was worried she was doing something fraudulent. then you get people like my friends dad who is totally bedbound and unable to move himself at all and he got awarded lower rate initially !

My mum was initially awarded higher rate, then two years later they put it down to lower rate on the basis that she had a catheter and did not need attention in the night.
mum is paralysed down one side, cannot speak and could not possibly be left overnight. And to make it worse when dad queried this social services threatened him with "action" because he did not notify them she had been catheterised. So he didn't dare take it further.

I thought very little of SS before this, it's impossible to underestimate what I think of them now

Honestly OP you need to step down from doing so much for DM, I know it’s harder said than done. Say no to the appointments and suggest she gets a taxi and pays with her AA and keep saying no to things. Tell her you can’t afford the petrol and the time off work so no sorry I can’t do this or that and keep saying it.
Don’t whatever you do reduce your own working hours. Her care needs will only get greater over time and you really much protect your own physical and mental health. I’m saying this as someone who was extremely close to a breakdown due to helping my parent. A carers organisation arranged counselling for me and I learnt lots of ways to say no and not feel guilty.
If your mum giving you money would help with any resentment you have then think this through and tell her. You may find if she did start giving you some of her AA then she would expect even more from you.