When does care become fully funded if mum needed a nursing home environment ?
At moment enablement team have passed us onto a local care agency, we pay £100 max a week for 2/3 calls at home a day.
Mum is on total bed care, Dementia, Addisons disease, thyroid issues, lymphoedema in lower body. Bed bound. Been in hospital 5 weeks, now been home a month. But her night distress means I don’t sleep.. then have to care for her with the carer(acting as 2nd care help) all through the day.
I am on point of exhaustion, I feel like a zombie. I’ve had a max of 2-3 hours sleep a night, dozing in a chair watching mum, in the last week. We got all the equipment Bed. Mattress. Commode. Pads.
Medication she needs. So GP says. But they refuse to give her sleeping pills. Respiradon is best I have for her demons at night.
Last night she was thinking we had left her in a pub, and she was drunk, couldn’t get home. Reality was she was in her hospital bed with airflow mattress comfy, with me trying g to stop her climbing out of bed and falling on the crash mats. Council social worker seems to throw every bit of equipment at us, but are reluctant to re comment a home. Mums 87, I am 65 and my health is not great either..
Mum has a few K savings in the bank. We get AA and her state pension, that’s it. Me and the family think she needs a home environment , with 24/7 care. Social care lot think different.
Twice this week the carer failed to attend at 8-30 am visit. So I had to call family to help me do her nappy and a wash. Mum lives in my home. And I live off Care allowance and a small occ pension of £130 a month. So it’s not a lot. My pension starts in September.
If mum went into a home. And they pay for so much. How the heck do I pay rest when I only get a pittance to keep me. I will not claim UC full stop.
Just need a bit of guidance, some sites to look at. See what I can do.
Any suggestions ?
@Christine_2001 Some people on here will have better knowledge than me, but from my experience, if your mum has below £23,500 in assets and savings she is entitled to state paid care. You would lose your Carers Allowance and her Attendance Allowance would also be withdrawn as part of the cost of the care to the council. You can absolutely refuse to care for her any longer on your own and insist that a place is found in a care home for her. I have just done this for my mum, as caring for her was getting too much for me, luckily I had a wonderful and supportive GP who reinforced this for me. My mum is self funding though, so it was up to me to find her a place and her home is now on the market. I would contact the Carers UK helpline, who may be able to give you more formal advice. All the best 
Just to add, my mum is in severe pain due to a heart condition and its effects on her body. One of the reasons she had to go into care was because the GP couldn’t in all conscience prescribe more morphine for her at home, because he considered it dangerous. Now she is in a Care Home, she has already had her pain relief increased as she is under 24 hour supervision. x
Carers UK have information here on care and nursing homes and paying for care:
(Residential care | Carers UK)), this quotes savings limits for 2023/2024. I have checked this out and they haven’t changed:
For the next financial year (2025 to 2026] the capital limits will remain at their current level: £23,250 for the upper capital limit and £14,250 for the lower capital limit.
Continuing health care is subject to as assessment - it’s hard to get and depends on where you live and who is doing the assessing (unfair). It’s a good idea to learn as much about it as possible so that you are fully informed.
If your Mum isn’t funded by CHC, funded nursing care is also worth knowing about:
YOU do not pay anything! It depends entirely on a financial assessment for mum. She pays what she can afford, the council pay the rest, as long as it’s a care home which takes L A funded clients. You must follow the correct procedure, starting with a Needs Assessment from the LA and a Carers Assessment for you
Hi Christine
It sounds as if your mother is in the same boat as my own. I sleep on Mum’s crash mats to keep her in bed. After two years she is beginning to settle down, as in not leave her bed, but unfortunately has developed dysphagia and will often have choking spasms during the night, so I still feel I need to be close by.
Speak with Mum’s GP or phone adult social care and ask for a CHC assessment to be triggered. I can’t tell you how successful the needs assessment may be as I haven’t found the energy to put in a second request since being ignored by a council social worker…“yes, let me deal with X first, then I will deal with Y”…when I chased up Y, I was told Mum’s case had been closed.
Mum cannot do anything for herself now. I love looking after her and wouldn’t change that, but at the moment we are both housebound by her disabilities. If our mothers do not meet CHC requirements, who does?
By the way, a couple of years ago, after begging, because they are very addictive, the doctor prescribed 14 Zopiclone tablets for Mum. Over the course of a month, I gave her one on those occasions when she was at her most wired/hadn’t slept for two days. Four occasions in all. One time, ONCE, she slept for three hours, about 30 minutes after taking one. The other three times, no effect, so I passed the remaining tablets back to the pharmacy.