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.

Lady F has a long history of obtaining money by deception, isolating friends and family. She has even changed her name a few times. Ranulph is apparently back home on the family estate, two modular " homes" have been erected; one for Ranulph and obesity for his carer. Strange because their house is comodious yo day the least

So it was a conspiracy when he was in a carehome and now its a conspiracy that he's at home.

It was clear they couldn't achieve privacy in a care home so I guess home is the only option.

Now if he stays in he'll be presented as a "prisoner" and if he wanders the roads he'll be considered neglected and if someone is with him it will be presented as not being allowed out without being spied on.

He should have been left alone from the start.The police checked, that was all that was ever needed.

The whole thing stinks. And now that some care homes raised concerns it seems his wife has pulled him out of a care home and is putting up a portacabin(s) for him and his carer to live in. So isolating him further and removing him from safeguarding and scrutiny. I hope the local social services are over this and protect him.

@AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta Thank you - got it!

He tried to divorce her in 2008 but she pulled all sorts of tricks out of a hat including bribing him with a sex video she had ,allegedly filmed .

I do wonder if this situation appeared on here written from the perspective of totally non famous people whether some responses would be different.

" I'm concerned for my stepfather. He's in his 80s and has been in my life since I was 10, sadly he now has Parkinsons disease. I'm NC with my mother for a number of reasons but have always had a good relationship with him.

For the last 2 years she has refused to allow his many friends and family members to see him or speak to him and even to know where he is. We've discovered that she's put him in 3 residential homes in different areas under false names and we understand from the owner of one home they had concerns about how his medication was being controlled by her and the validity of his DNR. They reported to the care authorities who confirmed what had happened was not legal as there was no DOLS in place but we're otherwise getting nowhere with eg the OPG. The police say they've checked but this was done before she moved him back home recently, only he's not in the house but a prefabricated building outside

A couple of people who did manage to get into the homes to see him reported that he was very happy to see them and expressed wishes to see others in his circle "

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdrsYnWAgUP/?stkn=MTlpZjZ4aG90eXl6dw==

It's easy for care homes to stop relatives/nuisance makers visiting by making out they are a danger to someone's person - if you are responsible for giving them drink and feeding them, for instance. Which, frankly, the care staff are not - if they won't do it you can't make them and two weeks of that and it's the morgue. So all it takes is one incident where your parent is struggling to swallow and they've got you! You can be barred - other tricks include allegations of 'abuse and intimidation' - they have a list of things they can cook up, with the cooperation of Social Services.

I'm not sure any care home would exactly welcome celebs or journalists visiting, I mean it's just asking for trouble isn't it.

As for the police, they are highly unlikely to call anything out or side against the care home, which is likely to be in cahoots with their mates at the Council via social services. All kinds of illegal behaviour went on in Surrey care homes and Surrey Police didn't want to know, they never do. Not unless it's some rogue staff member caught on camera doing something particularly egregious.

Agree the responses would be very different.

Most would say "Go the office of the Public Guardian or the Police", almost nobody would say "Go to the papers".

It seems they've done so, several of them and don't feel they are getting anywhere, hence what is happening now. Even people who are not celebrities take this course if they can get any interest from the media, although of course much harder to engender.

Anyway, my point was that take away the fame and the title and the money and the very famous friends, you would still have a situation that would worry most if not all people if it involved someone they cared for.

It seems they've done so, several of them and don't feel they are getting anywhere

Which is pretty good evidence there is nothing majorly untoward going on.

It’s been mentioned in this case that they have tried that route and did not get anywhere, and it has also been suggested that that route very rarely is helpful anyway.

I have no idea whether RF is being mistreated or not, but this specific option has been discussed.

Well. If only that were the case. That’s like saying that if you’ve reported something to the police / any other official agency then it will have been taken care of… what a wonderful utopian world that would be.

If you don't know if there's a problem or not and you report it to the police and they investigate and then find there's no problem then yes, it's taken care of.

There's a second agency who are also worth trying.

Selling a story based on insinuation to the press and setting up a go fund me, is certainly not the answer.

We seem to have forgotten that we are talking about a sector where Covid was seeded into care homes and scores of thousands wound up dead as a result. And nothing came of it in terms of follow-up. Normal rules do not apply.

It seems to me that since then there has been a dearth of the usual scandal stories about care homes - I mean, where would you go after that? It was a total massacre.

The exception for some reason seems to be bad care homes in Scotland, which the BBC seems keen on exposing, but I'd have thought Scottish ones might be better than those in the South East, as I thought adult social care is generally better there.

I recall a Twitter thread two or so years ago where a son could not even locate which care home his mother had been discharged to - he ran up against a total 'computer says no' blank as successive care homes refused to confirm or deny and the hospital wouldn't tell him. There was no difficult back story regarding him, he was just a bloke trying to find out where his mum was. He had to get his MP involved. Madness.

They did go to the police and social services

The papers are usually the last resort for most people. It’s a double edged sword that you go to once all other avenues are exhausted.