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.

I wonder if he himself is now paranoid and thinking people are out to get him, as that can go along with dementia/Parkinsons.

This happened to my relative who thought the nurses were trying to poison her and kept warning us about it.

He may or may not have completely lost touch with reality, I think some of the old friends are thinking that he will just be very old and frail and 'himself' whereas the state of his mind and how he might be acting or thinking out of character doesn't seem to have occurred to them.

My relative also kept trying to escape and hatching plans to do so, even when they could hardly move, so that was quite difficult to handle.

The long term friend I know would have accepted that (as would the King) - its the refusing to let anyone know anything about him that is so troubling

Agreed, it seems like the relationships between the wife/daughter and everyone else have broken down completely. It does seem there was a history of conflict prior to his illness too.

I saw the local sister of someone famous in the supermarket the other day. Veg aisle but had picked up special offer donuts already.
That was the most remarkable moment in a very dull day. Vaguely famous people in care homes must attract similar low level observation in a 'hows dad, same as usual but saw Bugs bunny looking very frail/incontinent now/incoherent'. It's human nature but not dignified. I suspect RF is not the easiest person when ill.

Who gave you the instruction to prevent the exploitative family member from visiting? Was it the resident’s other family, with POA? When he turned up and tried to see her, what authority did you use to prevent him gaining access?

This is correct. The care homes should have applied for DOLS, after which a best interest decision should be made (which involves speaking to staff, family members, social worker if there is one-doubtful in this case as the homes will be privately funded, and most principally , the person themselves-who should be allocated an independent mental health advocate if they can’t speak for themselves). Where all this falls down is that there is a huge backlog of applications to be asessed. For example in Hertfordshire where I managed care homes, there is a 4 year backlog. As a care home manager I had to reapply for the DOLs annually by resubmitting the form. An unscrupulous care manager could do this by simply changing the date, without adding any additional needs that have occurred during the time. And in that time you could be curtailing someone’s liberty indefinitely whilst awaiting the assessment. Add to that his relative has move him around a lot it seems-so a new DOLs application must be made for each new address. Finally applications from privately found and funded placements simply don’t get the same priority as places funded and arranged via social worker and funded by social care as they just aren’t on the radar as much.

Ive never known a DOLs decision to advocate not seeing family members except where family members are an extreme danger to the person. Even where there are concerns safeguards are put in place to protect the person whilst allowing the visit (supervised visits etc) so to me this case is decidedly dodgy and strange, but I’m not shocked it hasn’t been picked up on, just because due to the backlog, it probably hasn’t even been assessed by the DOLS team.

And yet Care Inspectorate Wales formally concluded that Sir Ranulph was being "unlawfully deprived of his liberty".

Unlawfully doesn't mean illegally. It just means the care homes didn't get all the right paperwork together, very few people do in these circumstances. I'm sure many of us have had elderly relatives in homes without a DoLS. Rightly or wrongly few homes seem to bother.

If the Care Inspectorate of Wales thought there was something serious going on they could also go to the Police.

People need to stop trotting out the list of celebs. None of them are making specific allegations. Read what Charles said directly. Basically nothing.

The "helicopter" story. It was third hand! Someone said someone else heard the Wife say something.

He's ill. Most likely the family don't want a trail of people visiting him as some kind of Victorian freak show. Some.people were told they could visit if they signed an NDA. That's reasonable and they said no. Why? Becaise they wanted to sell the story the the papers or put it in a book or exploit Fienne's predicament in some other way.

Here's what the police said. Note the difference between the clear quotes from the police compared from the one word second hand partial vague quotes from the celebs:

On Monday evening, Cheshire Police said it was satisfied Sir Ranulph was receiving suitable care.
Detective Chief Superintendent Claire Jesson said: “Police and partner agencies are aware of the concerns raised and are satisfied that Sir Ranulph Fiennes is living in an appropriate setting with suitable care and professional oversight,” she said.
“No immediate safeguarding concerns have been identified at this time.
“Any new information received will be assessed and considered through the appropriate multi-agency arrangements.
“As this is a matter involving an individual's care and welfare, it would not be appropriate to comment further on personal circumstances. We would ask that privacy is respected and unnecessary speculation is avoided."

Someone who works at a local old people's home told me the average life expectancy of an elderly person going in is just under 3 years.

So if there's a 4 year back log then very few people are getting a DoLS.

Exactly. As long as the application is submitted in timely fashion and the care home manager can show a record that they have chased it up regularly (I used to email the DOLs team monthly and keep those emails and the automated responses as evidence for CQC inspection), then that satisfies both CQC and the law around DOLs as the best interests decision is seen to be pending the case being assessed, over which the care home manager has no control
as it’s then down to the DOLs team to come and assess. The whole system is therefore ridiculous, though back logs vary from county to county. New legislation to replace DOLs has been due and planned for years but kept bring delayed .

‘Suitable and appropriate care’ in the view if the police might mean he is being fed, clothed, medicated as needed. But it’s a rare human being that doesn’t benefit even in a tiny way if they are very ill, from a wide range of human interaction with friends and family in my experience.

If what's happening is legal then it's nothing to do with us and a total non-story.

I'm sure he's getting plenty of contact, but not with people who barely know him and/or want sign an NDA.

Anyone going to the press with this hasn't got his best interests at heart. Quite the opposite, and if I was in this situation the very last people I'd want to see are the people who have gone to the press becaise I wouldn't want the fact I was (say) pissing myself and mentally shot in the papers.

Impossible to know who the nutters are in this case but my default position would be the ones maintaining a dignified silence are likely to be the good guys.

the police have clarified that they do not have any safeguarding concerns is only Cheshire Police confirming that at the time of checking, they were satisfied that RF was resident in a registered, regulated and approved care home while on their patch. All care homes must operate within this structure. I don’t think Cheshire Police will have enquired any further than that. They certainly won’t be interested in whether or not Lady F is preventing friends and family from visiting her husband. I do not think k they will even have gone to the home to speak to him. In any case, I doubt that RF is still at that particular care home. In fact he’s been moved on several times because of managers not agreeing to Lady F’s demands with regard to his care. The owner and management of a Welsh care home raised safeguarding concerns themselves with authorities regarding RF’s care arrangements.

From experience with an uncle, police don't really look too deeply into concerns on welfare checks. We had one tell my cousin that if his dad wished to pay hundreds of pounds to a family friend acting as a carer who was serving him rotten food and not bothering to clean him he was within his rights to do so. It took social services intervention to actually put a bar on this person going anywhere near him and likewise there's an embargo in her finding out where he is now as she wants to get more cash out of him

Well that’s one of way of seeing it. But there is a cast gulf between what’s technically legal (and what the police see as appropriate care provision which is a low bar), and what’s actually good care.
I don’t have personal feelings abouts RF but in general it’s shining a much needed light on yet another aspect of social care that’s been ignored and vastly underfunded and under considered, which has the potential to affect-well-all of us-should we find ourselves in that situation.

I'd agree social care can be terrible. (In fact typically is.) But I strongly suspect Fiennes care is way above average and most importantly there's nothing untoward about it. The whole story is insinuation and tin foil lunacy to sell papers.

They certainly won’t be interested in whether or not Lady F is preventing friends and family from visiting her husband.

Indeed they won't and nor should we be.

Naturally she and the homes don't want her husband spending his last days as a victorian freak show exhibit with random people dropping in without NDAs so they can sell their story to the press.

Do people not know that The Office of The Public Guardian can step in when there are potential abuses of Power of Attorney? That’s literally why it exists and why POA forms need witnesses.
I caught a bit on the news about the family getting a Lawyer involved, why, when you report your worries to the above and they can act if needed?

They can but they are slow, and though it's likely not a problem for RFs family, very expensive

why

A cynic might say because the papers give you money and publicity allows you to set up a gofundme.

Haha! You think King Charles is going to visit and sell his story to the press? Yeah, right.

As well as the others on the list, also improbable in the extreme.

Its in the link I posted. According to Mrs Finnes KC hates Ranulph even though he tried to enquire after his well-being and Camilla has helicopters flown over the home of the Finnes on purpose to annoy them.

I find the legal aspect interesting too. My dad is in a care home and they would not keep him without a DoLs in place - the LA assessor tried to say he didn't need one after Cheshire West overturn but the care home said no, they still wanted one. He does try to break out from time to time....

I have an LPA for him. I get calls about anything to do with his care, when the GP visits, if he has a nose bleed, etc.

I am actually very surprised care homes will take someone in RF's circumstances - false names etc. It was the care home that flagged to me that my dad's birth certificate has a spelling mistake and I needed to prove what name he went by.

I haven't needed to block access to my dad but I do get a call if someone other than his regular visitors come to see him (his ex carer came, for example) but it is more for information than permission. However, I think if I said no to visitors they would enforce it and the receptionist is beyond those found in a GP surgery so good luck to any triers... 😂

King Charles hasn't asked to visit. King Charles' name has been dragged into this to make it a better story. The quotes from King Charles are one word quotes total absent of context from a third party. They're not even claiming to be a direct quote from him.