Legal right to know which care home partner is in?

[Shesellsseashellsh]

Hi all,

My MIL's long term boyfriend has vascular dementia. They didn't live together, but were constantly at each other's houses and always with each other. His children (with power of attorney) put him a care home with no notice for either of them, and are refusing to tell her which care home he's in. She is, of course, utterly distraught. Is there any legal pathway to finding out where she is? I'd be so grateful for any advice

What is their reasoning for keeping this information from her?

On the issue of placing MIL partner in a care home without him having notice, this won't actually be true. You can only be placed in a care home with full consent of the person, or if you have lost mental capacity and a best interest meeting has taken place. At the meeting, which will have involved a social worker, and his family who held POA, his care needs will have been taken into consideration and if he required 24 hr care, a care home placement would have been found for him. No care home would have taken him in if this procedure wasn't followed, as they do an assessment themselves to check if they can provide the right level of care, and if he had capacity and refused they would not have offered him a placement,

It is a dreadful situation for MIL to be in, but as his non live in partner only, the family, have the legal if not moral authority to withhold this information from her.

People with dementia often accuse others ( without basis) of some dreadful things as it progresses accross the brain, and they lose function. It may be that he has accused MIL of mistreatment or financial misconduct, and the family have taken this at face value and believe they are protecting him from her.

Perhaps you can ring around care homes in the area to find out where he has been placed? If so, she may be able to visit him as a friend. Be aware though, if she has been accused of anything by him, the family have the right to refuse her permission and the care home will be obliged to block them.

I wonder if you can contact adult social care and raise it as an issue. Ok they have POA and so can legally make choices about his cafe, but surely it is abusive for them to not allow him to see his long term partner? At least they might be able to advise you.

Perhaps you can ring around care homes in the area to find out where he has been placed? If so, she may be able to visit him as a friend.

Under gdpr I doubt they can even confirm that he is a resident or not.

Adult social services may make sympathetic noises, but they wouldn't view it as abuse. POA gives the holder legal authority to act in their fathers best interests and I doubt that they will give MIL any information. They may discuss with family if access should be granted but given the case loads I doubt it.

My mum had alzheimer's and used to come out with some hair raising stories of what my brothers had done, or visitors that had stolen from her. I had enough experience with her (finding missing money, or judging what exactly had gone on) to discount it.

My instinct would be that this is what has happened and accusations have been taken at face value.

Of course, it could just be that the family aren't very nice, and have completely discounted her feelings.

Unless she was named in his POA I doubt she has any rights to anything.

Her next of kin can make the decisions in his best interests if he has lost capacity.

No, of course your MIL has no legal right to this info. Her boyfriend is a vulnerable adult and it would be a great breach of GDPR for any official body to disclose his address to her. If the family don't want her to tell her themselves and he doesn't have the capacity to tell her himself then there's no way she can find out.
Can you imagine if somebody was for example escaping abuse, and their boyfriend had a legal right to be told their address just because he really really wanted to know?

You are completely right about GDPR Haffdonga and Rounee, bonkers of me to suggest it to OP. My apologies to her/him.

I can't imagine there is any legal recourse for your mil here.

But in normal loving families, this isn't something that you do is it? So what's the deal?

Seems to me that the family are desperate to prevent him from changing his will...

I don’t know enough about it, but is there not a process through which to raise concerns about the actions of a POA? Surely the point is that the POA makes decisions in the best interests of the person and if they don’t (and I would have thought refusing visits from long term partner wouldn’t be in his best interests) that’s can be questioned? Pretty scary to think there is no way to raise concerns if there is abuse of POA happening.

Yes you would have to take it to court of protection but that is a very serious route to go.

You would need to have documented all correspondence. Have evidence of very serious concerns.

I think it would be this but you would be need solicitors, barristers and it would be costly.

I have no personal or professional experience of this but other family members have had for a great Uncle.

www.gov.uk/oneoff-decision-personal-welfare

They would say it's a very serious step.

Do you know what type of LPA the family members have - there are 2 types, Property & Affairs, and Health & Welfare. I would suggest your MIL asks to see the LPAs - the family members(s) appointed by her partner need to have registered the LPAs with the Office of the Public Guardian in order to rely on them to make any decisions for the donor (person who made LPAs.)
If family refuse to disclose documents you can do a search with the OPG - search OPG100 to find out how to do this, to check that they do have registered LPAs.
If your MIL thinks that it's not in her partner's best interests to deprive him of the opportunity to see her (the focus being on the partner's best interests if he is not capable of making the relevant decisions) then I'd suggest that she
(1) writes to the attorneys asking for the information about whereabouts and advising that if it is not forthcoming within, say, 5 days, she will make an adult safeguarding referral to the local adult social care team and also the OPG
(2) If the family don't respond favourably, MIL could then report her concerns - there's an online reporting facility on the OPG website and a phone line if you search "report concerns about an attorney" and if you type in the name of your local social services authority and "adult safeguarding" or " vulnerable adult" you will find the council's online portal and phone number.
(3) Finally, in parallel with the above if the partner lacks the mental capacity to consent to his care in a care home the care home should have referred his situation to the local social services "DOLS team" (stands for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.) If you can find the contact details for the LA DOLS team then you could contact them with partner's full name DOB and original home address and report that you are concerned that the care he's receiving is not the least restrictive as he's being deprived of contact with his partner and she ought to be consulted by the Best Interests Assessor (specially trained social worker) when undertaking the statutory assessments.
As PP have said no-one is going to volunteer information to you (except in response to an OPG100 search) but you will create a trail of red flags that should eventually lead to oversight by statutory services.
The Court of Protection is never the first resort of anyone sensible (and I say that as someone who makes my living litigating in the Court of Protection!) Good luck to you and MIL.

I think this is a safeguarding issue actually. If the children have genuinely taken him away from close contacts and are refusing reasonable requests so she can't visit or send him things then they are possibly not acting in his best interests. Depriving him of his friend is abusive.
No doubt they are obsessed with their inheritance but it's not all about them. I would contact the local authority safeguarding team op. Maybe the last you hear of it, maybe not.

They can't take him away from anyone, he's either consented to entering the home or he's been assessed as not having capacity. If he doesn't have capacity it's very common for those with dementia to make unfounded accusations about a person, it's possible he's told his family all sorts of things about his partner rather than it being an inheritance issue. It was inheritance then he must still have capacity as a will chase after losing capacity won't be legal, in which case he'd have consented to entering the home himself.

As a will changed* after losing capacity isn't valid.

My spelling has been atrocious tonight.

How very sad for your MIL

Wow! Thank you all so much for your sage advice. I'm really touched that you've taken the time to respond so fully - we've felt quite alone and isolated trying to work out what on earth to do as my MIL is very, very low (we have engaged mental health support for her etc.). I think our first step will need to be try to reason with his children again. It is a horrendous thing that they've done, but I also appreciate that this is a horrific time for them all too, and I can see what many of you said about allegations made by people with dementia could be the case. They have never approved of MIL for various reasons, but it feels like there must something else to have triggered the current situation. Then we'll go down the route of tracking down the LPA (there's def a health and welfare one, not sure if a property/finance one too), and take it from there. I will update this thread if we have any success.

Ok, I tried reasoning with his youngest daughter, but she is still refusing. It’s got a bit darker though as we’ve found out that his oldest daughter is financially exploiting MIL for access to visit him in a cafe - she has asked for £1500!!!!!!! So we’ll be contacting adult social services and the police. It’s tricky though, as MIL is so desperate to see him that she wants to just pay the money, and doesn’t want us to do anything that might jeopardise her opportunity to see him. I don’t know where we will stand with reporting to the police if she says it’s not fraudulent as she’s doing it of her own volition. It’s so, so sad. I honestly can’t believe that his daughter is exploiting the situation like this. It makes me feel physically sick. Thanks again for your advice

That's absolutely disgusting, I'm so sorry that's happening to your poor MIL. If you have evidence of the attempt at extortion I would also report to the office of the public guardian (in addition to the police and social services) as that is clearly complete abuse of the power of attorney.

As regards “ going into a home without warning isn’t true “

it might be. We had to do this last year when a relative had an episode of psychotic depression. Psych would have admitted to psych hospital , but wanted to stay with terminally I’ll spouse and spouse with them - so a care home took them after 10am assessment ( psych home treatment went 2x day to start with ) and by 5pm we were moving them in.

we had no idea how much they were not coping as lived at a distance and despite telling Gp we were worried , and having had Gp assessment this person hid things so well till the whole think fell in

Please do report to the office of the public guardian as they are abusing the power of attorney, and if they are doing this, what else are they up to?
The police might find that MIL is not the victim of a crime, but I think they will find that her BF is.