My father has just been diagnosed with dementia. He has been living alone in a flat in London. He currently in hospital. The social services want to send him back to his flat despite his severe memory loss and night time wandering.
The mental health consultant said it was not safe and yet social services still persisted. I have made a formal complaint and they have relented to send him to interim care home while they refer him to the court of protection.
Do we need to get legal representation for this court?
In the hospital the nurses have said they do not need to do the chc because of covid. Social services have refused to do the checklist as he is in hospital. In the meantime they have sent a form for means testing.
How do I make them do the chc checklist without us paying for his care.
This is extremely stressful. It is worse that I am a hospital doctor on the south coast and know how to navigate the nhs. I really feel sorry for families who don’t know any of this and social services lie and connive behind patients’ backs.
A Court of Protection referral is made where there is no Lasting Power of Attorney in existence. A LPA is made by the “donor” - in this case that would be your Father and is the means whereby the “Donor” appoints one or more "Attorneys " to safeguard their financial and/or health concerns when they lose capacity to look after them themselves.
If your Father has lost capacity to make financial and/or health decisions for himself the his case will go to the Court of Protection who will appoint an “Attorney” to oversee such matters on his behalf.
The Court of Protection is not a “Court” in the sense that there is a judge/jury but a body overseen by a judge appointed to determine who will be responsible for these aspects of care.
Basically social services are wanting control over your father’s affairs so that they can ignore you, probably because they consider you to be a troublemaker. It often happens when family members disagree with social workers, but this is a steam hammer to crack a nut. As Susieq says, this is not a court hearing although a judge supervises the process. As social services are making the application, they are probably suggesting that family members are interfering with the process of supporting your father.
I suggest you contact a solicitor for advice as from what you’ve said, the social services department may be overreaching, especially when going against medical advice.
Over the CHC, it’s actually in social services’ best interests to do the checklist if there’s the slightest chance of getting CHC funding, as well as your father’s. That said, it doesn’t have to be carried out by social services - the hospital could have done it.