Ranulph Fiennes - care home restrictions, DoLS ?

[Mixymaxymoxy]

Ranulph Fiennes - does anyone understand what’s happening with him? I’ve read several articles that say his wife has LPA, has put him in a care home / several care homes under false names and against his will, and various friends / relatives are outraged about how he’s being treated. He has Parkinson’s. It’s not clear whether he has capacity.

The article talks about excessive restrictions being placed on his freedom, preventing him from seeing friends etc. The phrase in one article is ‘arrangements for his care were subsequently found to amount to an unauthorised deprivation of his liberty.’ How does that come about? It doesn’t say how these ‘arrangements’ come to be in place? is it just his wife telling the home not to let anyone visit him? Telling them that he has to wear a disguise on walks etc? I’ve only had one relative in a care home, but I can’t imagine the staff there going along with bizarre requests like this 🤷‍♀️ But how would it have worked if we’d said, for example, that specific individuals were not allowed to visit her? Are care homes required to follow instructions from relatives like that?

The article also talks about the lack of a DOLS but implies that his wife should be supplying this to the home: I thought it was the care provider who’d need to apply for this, not family?

i know that there are very knowledgable people on this board and wondered what your take on this story was.

LPA's are very complicated, and the idea that your relative who signed it 30 years previously might always have your 'best interests' at heart is a huge problem.

I had it for my husband and it was suggested to me that we override his admittedly fluctuating capacity and put him in a home. I thought he still had capacity and didn't want that, so I refused.

One correction, I think, but you would have to check, that the Finances LPA can be used at any time as long as the person (donor) consents, so you can help them with bills and banking, but the health one only kicks in when they have lost capacity.

I don't know what to make of the RF story, part of me thinks he has well-developed Parkinsons so may have said to his wife he doesn't want his old friends to see him like that and she's doing what he wanted, but part of me thinks she might have her own issues and that's what's causing the concern.

Why would a random relative make great decisions about your life? It's an odd concept if you think about it.

It’s so odd I agree, can’t make head nor tail of it!

if RF was settled in one care home and visitors who wanted to were able to stop by and have a cup of tea and see that he was doing as well as could be expected, there would be no fuss. Even if they had to sign an NDA, or the care home staff weren't all told his full name.

the idea that it is in RFs best interests to move around to different care home and be unable to have any visitors is pretty implausible, and that is why all the friends / stepson etc are making a fuss.

I know that.

When MIL was in hospital they stopped giving her the anti psychotic drugs she was taking to control her Alzheimer’s, and all hell broke loose.

The hospital rang us and said they were going to need to put her under a DoL. They organised it following consultation with us and it was removed as soon as she was back on the right medication, less than a week later.

As PPs have said, we don’t know the full story, but one care home manager did raise the fact that the DoL did not seem to have been drawn up correctly at which point RF was swiftly moved to another home. It does look quite concerning. It’s difficult to imagine a situation where someone ‘needs’ to be kept away from every single one of their friends and family

@Fernsarethebestplants ”I don't know what to make of the RF story, part of me thinks he has well-developed Parkinsons so may have said to his wife he doesn't want his old friends to see him like that and she's doing what he wanted, but part of me thinks she might have her own issues and that's what's causing the concern.”

yes, lots of people don’t want to be seen like that. And care homes are accustomed to handling this.

It doesn’t explain the false names, moving him around, and trying to get medication in a false name and/or deny his medications.

Just seen this on news night. Utterly bizarre. Especially with the step son wanting to see him - I wonder why he’s estranged from his mum?

Care homes try to manipulate and force a plethora of prescribed medications on people with Parkinson’s and dementia because it makes it easier for their staff to deal with the person. Antipsychotics are pushed on residents like the answer to everything. I’ve had MANY a conversation where I’ve had to push hard back on certain medications where I know the side effects on my DM who has advanced Parkinson’s is no joke. But the care homes and GPs often want an easy life.

It takes me back to when we moved my mum to a different nursing home. The home team quite clearly thought we were effectively killing her and that nobody could care for her like them. She lived almost another two years in the new home and I infinitely preferred the setup there. I hope so much that this is family pain and disagreement breaking into the news rather than mistreatment. But realistically SOME people are being mistreated with LPAs, the potential is certainly there.

I thought they’d gone the other way now, and they were really withholding the antipsychotics for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients?

hang on, are you one who misunderstood the article or didn’t read it? Apologies if I’ve got the wrong person.

@Fernsarethebestplants "One correction, I think, but you would have to check, that the Finances LPA can be used at any time as long as the person (donor) consents, so you can help them with bills and banking, but the health one only kicks in when they have lost capacity."

I have LPA for my DP - he wanted it put in place as a precaution for if anything happens to him, I've had no reason to assume POA - but we've been watching the Ranulph Fiennes news and he checked online and you can indeed assume power over the person's finances even if they have 'capacity'. Also reading about the case has made me realise the huge amounts of trust he's placed in me.

Ive been thinking this is about Voldemort all morning

@EmeraldRoulette - exactly - it's totally believable that someone would not want to be seen if they're in a really bad way but as you also point out, that doesn't convincingly explain the false names and numerous moves that the wife has undertaken on top of all the other concerns the Welsh care home manager raised with the watchdog - presumably the Care Inspectorate Wales.

I read the full MoS article that this is referring to. I always try to maintain an open mind in these kinds of cases where it's reported allegations without evidence but I checked the marriage indexes - which are available to the public and it does appear that RF's wife married her first husband under two fake names in 1999. Weirdly he married her under two different surnames also.

Clearly multiple care home moves do not sound ideal for a frail man - but is it misguided on her part or calculated is the question?

Back in 2006 there definitely seems evidence to suggest possible fraud in her past and also possible coercive control (as the law would call it now). Her former partner (RF's stepson's biological father) even alleges she cut off contact from her own mother and aunt when she discovered he got on with them. He alleges that she tried to cut him off from his friends, denied his status as biological father of Alexander and even tried to change the deeds of his house into her name. Obviously I don't know why the papers were writing about this so soon after her marriage to RF but clearly there's evidence of some irregularities here (the fake names) and allegedly a pattern of controlling behaviour.

Question is - if these allegations are sufficiently reliable - is her treatment of RF purely benign or are all his friends and relations from the decades before he even met his second wife - right to be very concerned?

RF's sister in law from his first marriage states in a BBC interview that when she went to see him last July and told him that everyone misses him, he replied "Send a message to everyone, send them my love and tell them I'm longing to see them." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/ck8d3v9635vvo

He has a daughter - where is she in this?

I'm carer for my bedbound husband and have been for years. When it first became clear that he wouldn't walk again and couldn't tolerate even a wheelchair anymore (we tried) he said he didn't want anyone to see him like that other than me, medical people and the carers (we have very little family and none at all local) He was a bit of an Action Man type in his younger days and I respected that, friends understood and it can be changed at any point the moment he indicates. He is now actually happy to exchange a few words when friends call or wave goodbye and perhaps that's the lengthy process of acceptance of the new status quo. Whatever, it is his call.

He is however in his own home, with consistent care from a registered agency as well as me, frequent contact from the surgery and nothing is hidden. He's also not being moved hither and yon under false names and now (apparently) to some sort of 'module' outside his own house behind high walls. Noone really knows what Sir Ranulf wants or what his capacity is and so many aspects of the story raise real concern, eg when his late wife's sister (who he has known since they were both children) admitted herself to the residential home in London, he was happy to see her and then apparently spirited away.

I don't think anyone concerned about all this is saying that residential care is automatically a bad thing, it is often the only safe option, but the lack of openness, indeed actual secrecy around his situation that his wife is maintaining should raise red flags.

BBC news today says she and the wife are the only 2 people who know where he is. So presumably, able to visit him.
At 20 though, if (if) you've grown up with a controlling mother, then how aware would you be that something isn't ok?

Apparently his step son ie his wife's son who knows him well and is very fond him is also concerned about his situation and has been prevented from seeing him.
It doesn't sound good does it.
Reminds me of the shemirani business.

Bit harsh. My late mother had advanced Parkinson's and my sister and I could easily have looked after her at home. Not hard, given for some mysterious reason successive Surrey care homes refused to give her sufficient daily drink (cough Liverpool Care Pathway cough).

First time round, we did like @Cileymyrus and took Mum out for the day and didn't bring her back, we moved her to a nearby care home. This was because the previous care home had gone mad on us - little did we know that Surrey's Social Services were orchestrating it behind the scenes, tipping them off on how to set us up.
Around this time DoLs was brought up even though Mum hadn't walked in years and even then before that it was accompanied and with a zimmer.
It always seemed fishy, like we were the ones said to be suspect, but that's how state operators act when they're the ones up to no good (see Post Office scandal, Hillsborough et al)

But yeah, care home would then act hard to stop us from moving Mum to another care home, got Social Services involved who were always on the hotline. My view is that they were out to kill Mum via dehydration to save money - passive euthanasia in turns out is actually legal in this country but nobody shouts about it - and needed DoLs to stop us moving Mum out for the day in case we 'did a runner' like before.

I'm not saying it is always a sinister situation - you can't have folk with dementia being able to just let themselves out of a care home and go walkabout, plus bed rails need to be in place at night and so on - but sadly there is absolutely no law or rule that Surrey's Social Services can not interpret in a sinister way.

I agree with everyone that it does sound sinister, all the moving, hardly anyone knowing where he is, this is the reality of the slippage that can occur when the law puts so much responsibility in the hands of (usually) the spouse or children to make decisions for their family member. Not all spouses and children are benign and making 'best interests' decisions.

This case may shine a spotlight on this, and lead to more awareness of the DoL usage and how the state and care agencies can push back if they suspect anything untoward.

Care homes equally do overuse medication on elderly patients and his wife may best know his wishes.

I suspect both sides think they are right and know what he wants and he's not got capacity to decide for himself, it's good that others are getting involved but it won't be clear cut what he wants if he's got quite advanced dementia.

My DF had Parkinson's and then Lewy Bodies Dementia (closely associated with Parkinson's) and he had a DOLs at the care home.

There was no way on earth we would have stopped his friends and relatives visiting, and many did. Some found it incredibly upsetting - given the speed of decline and the things he was hallucinating.

I can't think of a reason to stop friends visit, especially clearly non-looneys like John Simpson. Can you?

The only one I can think of is that he asked for them not to see him like that when he was more aware.

I have found that often the very ill person wants privacy and only a chosen few to visit. I didn't see my lovely friend for the last six weeks of her life as it was family only for this reason.

I agree it could have a sinister explanation, and I think it's right for the state to monitor this and challenge it if necessary, but it's also not inconcievable that you might not want friends and family visiting you in the the worst state of your life. I also did not post photos of my loved one in their last six months, again, that wasn't how they wanted to be remembered and they just looked very ill and not themselves.

You’ve articulated what I was thinking over the weekend!

The most telling aspect of this story is that Alex (the stepson) has set up a crowdfunding page to cover the costs of going to court to remove the POA from his mother for RF. He must have very serious concerns about the situation for him to take those steps. Apparently, all his friends and family are being prevented from seeing him - and he’s been regularly moved from one care home to another under false names. I feel so sorry for him.

The donor does not have to lack capacity for a financial LPA to be used.
The donor does need to be lacking capacity for an LPA Health to be used.