Can I refuse to have my mother stay with me?

[Wheatlands]

My mother, aged 97, is currently in a high care unit that she was sent to after spending three weeks in hospital with pneumonia. When my husband called yesterday to ask about the plan for mum, the nurse said they are still giving her antibiotics, and she is having 'mobilisation therapy' and then they will be looking into her discharge. From what the nurse says, they intend to discharge her back to us, but with more carer visits. Before she went into hospital she had one carer visit a day.
Both my husband and I work fulltime. I work from home, but for 10 to 12 hours a day teaching English online and I risk my work if I have to leave a meeting to care for mum.
We have cared for her for 12 years, with her progressively needing more and more care. She falls often and I can't lift her on my own. She is incontinent and even with the nappies, needs a lot of cleaning. She needs attention during the night.
We are both completely exhausted - I have been battling a viral chest infection since before Christmas. I feel completely terrified. I don't want her to come back because we just can't cope any more. There is no other family help available.

Do I have the right to refuse to have her back?

I think there may be some misunderstanding here. Your mother's care plan will absolutely be about what is best for her but only wrt the options available. You need not be one of these options. They will however update the care plan according to her needs not yours. So fi, if care home X is considered more suitable but you'd rather she lived in care home Y because it's closer to your gym then they wouldn't take that into account.

yup

The answer is "probably yes" even for a person who has no access to public funds, under the Care Act 2014 and the various National Assistance Acts.

Not read full thread, is it your house? Does she have any legal rights over ownership of the house?

Op rents the house which she lives in

The State.........................dont overeat smoke or drink and keep your weight down. Protect the NHS!!
Also The State.................Fuck up your health and run yourself ragged caring for elderly relatives!!

If this practice isn’t illegal, it certainly should be

I don’t think the OP should get involved in any financial discussions, this situation is totally down to the state to sort out

Christ on a bike. Such angels eh!

Maybe it needs an ITV drama made about it. Seems to be the only thing that works!!

Remember Breathtaking, The ITV drama about how the medics fought Covid.
Well for balance how about one made about this. Perhaps one of us should submit a script!

So we are in a slightly different but similar situation at the moment. It is so hard @Wheatlands and the fact you have managed to care for your Mum for 12 years is amazing.

In principle you do not have to take your Mother back and the system needs to pick her up. The Social Worker was not correct re: your Mother's needs not yours counting the most.

Social Services has a legal duty to assess your Mother's cares needs in England and Wales. They should do this based on her ability to carry out activities of daily living, the safety of her home environment and access to care and support within her home. Based on whether they assess her as having met the criteria for care, they will then do a financial assessment to see if she is eligible for state funding or has to self fund. The financial assessment does not take place until her care needs have been assessed and should not influence what level of care they recommend.

Does your Mother have any legal claim to your house? Eg co-owner etc? If not, then it should be fairly straightforward, but expect to have to keep repeating the fact you can't have her at home. You need to be clear you can no longer provide care based on what you have put here, and then the state will pick this up.

If she is entirely funded by the State they will sort this for you, and should do this in conjunction with you and your Mother. If she has any element of self funding, they will expect her to contribute to her costs. But they will not expect you to pick up any tab.

Have you had a carers assessment? If not, then you need to get one as soon as possible. If you have one, but your needs have changed you need it updated. Legally, in England at least and I think from memory Wales too, you have a right to support as a carer and if the carer support "breaks down" (or in this case needs to stop due to exhaustion), then your Mum's care assessment has to factor this in.

Good luck and keep.us posted.

This whole situation has become ludicrous- just like we have social housing - in my view the state need to start building ( or taking over) some nursing home settings to be run as not for profit - simply to stop situations like this- Not many 97 year olds are up to looking after themselves fully ( yes a few are) and it's falling on families, particularly where there aren't huge assets to be liquidated giving families 'choice' - not only in my opinion is this not ideal for the family ( usually the woman too that it falls to ) but not really great for the elderly person either whose families still in most cases need to earn a living and have a life and not spend vast amounts of time acting as another unpaid nurse/carer

The owners of the care home where my DM spent her last years are seeking to expand the home by another 60+dementia beds. Never let there be said there’s no money in care homes. It’s just that the carers doesn’t get it.

No, only the person needing care has to pay. Their spouse does not contribute towards the care. If a couple have joint savings then only 50% can be used towards care. Nobody can be asked to pay for another person's care.

Oh they can be asked......but it cannot be enforced.

Oh, I thought that household income would be used in the calculation. Suppose one spouse is a high earner and other has no income at all; would the first spouse's income not count? Presumably half the value of the family home counts if the couple co-own it?

Unless you're living in your mother's home the answer is 'yes' you do have a right to refuse.

If you cannot cope with her care needs tell the hospital. They cannot just discharge her.

If this person was from social services they are wrong.
The Care Act 2014 puts those in in need of care and their careers on an equal footing.

In any case, you can refuse to have her back. And the hospital will likely make a social care referral. I would imagine the local authority would then make the suggestion to the hospital that your mother needs to be considered for Continuing Healthcare. In no way will you be expected to pay for your mums care.

It doesn't matter if the person needing care doesn't have a penny to their name and the spouse has a million in the bank. The care cost is for the person that needs care only. The marital home is protected while there is still the other person living in it. If for example your husband went into care they couldn't take the value of the house into consideration. If you were to die while your husband was still alive then he would inherit your half of the home and it would then be taken into account and sold. Another scenario is if you also needed up care then the marital home would be considered shared and half the proceeds would be used towards each persons care.

We, a couple in our late sixties, are currently caring for our son with significant SEN at home, dealing with the (also significant) care needs of my brother, which I really shouldn't have to worry about considering what I already have on my plate, (and he's my brother! not a parent or a child) and also dealing with my 93 year old fil who cannot walk without assistance and refuses to go into a care home. He has to have incontinence pads because he cannot walk and thus cannot get to the bathroom. He sits in his chair all day because he is immobile. He requires 4 visits a day from privately funded carers (privately funded by us, his family, now that his money has run out) amounting to about 6 hours a day. Social services have assessed him as needing three 20 minute visits a day. What!? To feed him? Shower him? Change his pads? Administer the considerable amount of medication he takes each day? (He wouldn't have the first idea, truly) Cook his meals? ( obvs usually soup and a sandwich, it all takes time). Not to mention who is to do the cleaning and the laundry and the shopping. He does have 3 children and we do share the administrative and financial load, but surely it has to stop before our mental health is totally trashed.

We have saved the government a fucking fortune. Hundreds of thousands of pounds. I mean, let's face it, between son, brother and father in law, more likely many millions of pounds.

This thread has come at a good time for me. I was just about getting to the end of my rope and wondering if I had the guts to put a stop to it all. To tell SS I can't support my brother any more. To withdraw all the cleaning and maintenance and day to day organising of his medical appointments and sorting out his bills and making sure he has clean clothes. It would upset him if I did that. He'd be gutted if I washed my hands of him. And that's what they rely on. Relatives feeling they 'have' to do this whether through love or guilt.
(Although why I do feel guilt I cannot explain)
To withdraw my quarterly blitz of his dirty house. To throw in the towel with fil and say he needs to go into a nursing home and if he or they don't agree then I am well and truly out.

I'm getting old too. My son with SEN us reliant upon me. So is my brother. My fil is reliant upon us both. I have grandchildren too. If I took to heart what I read from some spectacularly entitled daughters on mumsnet who expect a weekly sleep over at least, and how hard life is having to look after your own kids.

"My parents are in their 60s, fit and healthy, they don't seem interested in holidays, all they do is go off and visit my uncle and my granny. They never go off to Paris or Grenada or Spain or Turkey. Totally not interested in travelling anywhere different or interesting. They just always spend their holiday money going back to their hometowns. How really boring are they? So why can't they spend a bit more time looking after my children while I get a break?"

Of course that's not the opinion of my own children. They are well aware
of our lives and stresses and know we give what we can. It's just a snapshot of what I read from mothers on here. It's absolutely lovely being a grandmother.
I love them and am more besotted by them than I was with my own children.
But I'm so much older now and have more worries and responsibilities and less energy. I adore my grandchildren in short bursts. I love them and I would do anything for them. But I want, now I'm nearly 70, to begin to wind down a bit.

I know I've gone on a bit. Sorry for that. But 30 year old mothers have to realise that almost 70 year old grandparents have their limits.

And OP. Stick to your guns. Even if they guilt trip you. Make it clear that your sofa is not an appropriate place for your mother to be cared for. And that you are not going to do the caring.

My dad has recently had a financial assessment as he needs carers every day (should be twice a day but he would only agree to once 🙄). They took into account everything he had in his own name and 50% of joint savings, but not the house. My parents are both disabled and get PIP on top of their state pensions but because they sold the family home a few years ago to downsize they have over the threshold in cash sitting in their bank accounts so we’re assessed as having the means to pay for the carers themselves.

@EntropyCentral so sorry to read of your situation, it sounds very hard. I get the guilty feelings but I think you do need to contact adult social services and tell them you cannot deal with FIL anymore. You need to stop paying for the carers so that SS step in, like you say they are relying on your empathy and goodwill to keep it going so they don’t have to.

If you contact them and tell them that you are at crisis point and FIL needs urgent help then it should get the ball rolling.

because they sold the family home a few years ago to downsize they have over the threshold in cash sitting in their bank accounts so we’re assessed as having the means to pay for the carers themselves

Yep. That's how it goes. You just have to suck it up. We have the same.
fil had over 200k. It's all gone now, so we, the extended family, are paying a few k a year each. As soon as we can get him into a nursing home we can sell his house and that will pay for it.

I hope she managed to sneak her mother back in???? How was this resolved?

Unfortunately not @Thursdaygirl - she cared for her until she died, nearly killed her too. She endured funding battles and not enough support, constant gaslighting from clinicians, GP, social services etc