What if carers can't be found?

[roundaboutthehillsareshining]

Continuing the saga from my previous post. We were all set up ready for discharge, then the care company appointed to provide visits cancelled the contract on the day, saying they were unable to fulfil.

Apparently the LA brokerage team are currently unable to find a care provider willing to accept the contract due to frequency of visits, rural location and past behaviour.

So how long will the team let this drag on for, presumably approaching more and more companies with less and less chance of success? And what happens if a care company cannot be found? Will they discharge with no visits?

Anyone been in this situation? Thanks!

The person can’t be discharged without a care plan in place. Social Services need to find another provider.

Well, if carers cannot be found due to the frequency of visits needed, the rural location and the behaviour of client then the other option is a care home.

round here seems to be happening more and more as there are lots of people living in rural villages. this leads to lots of people being stuck in hospital bed blocking as they cannot be discharged without adequate care.

Yes I would say look at care homes now as an option.

It is definately very common in villages now which see to have all been comandeered by the elderly. Which is fine until they need younger people to give care.

IME when SS couldn't find anyone they had to pay to use more expensive agencies than they usually would, or pay for out of county/travel expenses, until a cheaper option came up. Or place in a home miles away.

Ime the person either discharges themself against medical advice if they have mental capacity to do so (you can probably guess what followed) or they go to a care home placement. This can be temporary if carers are found reasonably quickly, or permanent.

It’s a definite downside of living rurally

A neighbour was hunting for care visits and was told they’d need to pay 3 hours plus mileage (2 carers, 45 minutes each way) plus however long visits were. So a half hour was over £100. They did try with reablement carers ( council) but ended up paying for carehome.

I didn't see your last post but in my local authority it would either be a care home to sit and wait for care to be found, a wait for the council's own reablement service to have availability, or the offer of a direct payment (I.e they give you the cash to employ people directly yourselves).

There's a few other options as well but being discharged with no care if it's needed isn't one that would be given by the local authority.

It would also depend on the care needs, mental capacity etc of the person needing to be discharged and what they would agree to/ accept.

Thanks all. So still no updates from anyone, and it's been nearly a month now since the proposed discharge dates.

It's reassuring that they won't just hoik relative out of hospital with no care. Relative has no capacity and is under a DoLS, so shouldn't be able to leave hospital "under their own steam" (however they've already made several credible attempts to abscond, so we'll see.....).

So it sounds like we just sit and wait. I won't be investigating care homes, SS will need to do that. Partly due to the capacity issue, also relative is likely to need a more specialist placement due to complex MH needs and SS have not shared any details of care plan/care needs, so I have no idea what to look for in a home or what questions around care to ask.

It's just not very helpful, as the one thing that triggers downturns in relative's MH is being told something is going to happen, then it doesn't.....

Sounds incredibly difficult. We were in a similar position 3 years ago and I managed to find a company to cover the care myself. They were new and only had a few clients and were willing to take on my DFIL.

If no Care company can be found can they go to a rehabilitation ward? My DA has been in one recently who took very goid care of her and it wax through this placement that it was decided home wasn’t appropriate and a care home was found.

Are you talking to the Discharge Facilitator regularly? I usually try and take them in something like pens and chocolate and talk to them often about what progress there is.

Thanks @BunnyRuddington , no we're not in regular contact. The discharge is being managed through Social Services, and they're just ghosting the family - no respose to requests for updates via email, they don't answer their phone, etc.

The Discharge to Assess placement has come up before, but as relative doesn't have a definite diagnosis, isn't receiving medical care and doesn't need hands on personal care, it's been dismissed as probably not worth it. But maybe that's where we're heading if a company can't be found.....