Is this acceptable??

[Lunamoon23]

Hello,

Looking for advice, my father is in a residential facility/care home and has been since May of last year. He had a brain annyersum that left him unable to care for himself at home. He can walk but he often fell etc.

I’ll save all the backstory, but he has been going into the local town and spending huge amounts of money. He went in 4 days ago and spent £270 in Tesco. When I questioned him about what he’d spend that money on, given that he has all meals cooked and provided to him within the home, he told me it was stuff for the home. Fruit, biscuits, juice, vegetable's, cheese etc. It shocked me that they’d accept this?

we have a ongoing dilemma regarding mental capacity with my father and are currently in the process of seeking POA but in the meantime, this is the situation.

So my question is, is this allowed???

where is his money coming from? What happens when he runs out? Will
the care home let him remain there if he can’t pay for it?

to get POA he needs capacity so you might want to stay quiet for a while until it’s awarded as if there is any doubt then you won’t be awarded POA

There is a group of symptoms that can occur when the frontal part of the brain is injured. An aneurysm may or may not lead to this. It is generally called "disinhibition" ie we stop inhibiting ourselves. The usual examples are we might say what we think out loud without the polite civilized editing we normally exercise, we can spend money/gamble, look at pornography, drink or use drugs. A less discussed frontal lobe symptom is "reckless altruism" or "reckless generosity". I think you may be seeing this and whilst of course it can be exploited, it can just be spontaneous for the patient.

Oh yes, and frontal lobe problems are the ones which are least likely to be flagged up in a "capacity assessment" - they are difficult to legally define as we are all at different set points for our natural inhibition to our lack of it...
A good cognitive assessment (neuropsychology assessment or neurologist) may help.

There is no law against this. However, it could be against their company policies.

Is there a communal kitchen onsite ? If so is that where this stuff is going ? £270 is a lot of money in a week in food.

You need to speak to the location manager and find out what’s going on.

You can arrange for shopping days with him as well and supervise what he’s doing.

Is it possible to put up secret cameras at all if this was my dad I think this would be the next step and also a tracking device I know it sounds harsh but its a cruel world we live in unfortunately I hope you get sorted x

If he runs out of money then you can apply for funding from local authorities