Discharge from Hospital: Community Assessment Bed: Care

All about caring
1

Hello,

This is my first message here, having only recently found this forum. Care is feeling like a minefield just now. My mother had been in a care home for her safety for 20 years, a really good care home, but a few weeks an accident lead to her having part of her colon removed and a stoma repair. Now the care home can’t have her back because they can’t care for her and she has lost mobility which I hope she can recover at least some of during her recovery.

It is complicated because she is based in Margate and I am in Manchester (300 miles away) but I am managing to travel down every weekend. I want her at the very least to be moved to a care home in Manchester but mainly to become her carer and for her to live with me. However, I live in a first floor one-bedroomed flat so would need a suitable place to live to care for her.

So, that is the background. The Rapid Transfer Team at the hospital have been saying for a couple of weeks that they are looking for a Community Assessment Bed(CAB) for her and I had hoped this would be in Manchester but it is funded by the NHS Trust where she is so tomorrow she moved to a short-term placement for ‘assessment’. I had thought assessment of her abilities and care needs but I have learned today that actually the ‘assessment’ is about whether her care will be funded by NHS or social care or she needs to self-fund. I can’t imagine what it is going to feel like for her to be sent to a strange place without her personal possessions (which I will collect from the old care home and bring to her at this temporary placement on Saturday) at the age of 85, being fragile and frail. So that is causing me a lot of distress.

In the meantime I am trying to learn about care, to liaise with two local authorities, to find a way of bringing her to Manchester and getting the care she needs (1 to 1 care with a family member which she has been responding really well to in the hospital).

So it is a minefield to get the care support she needs, get her moved to Manchester and learn how the care system works and the support I might be able to get for her. It seems further complicated by the fact that she has been in a care home for so long and so address, contact details and financial history for her are blank areas.

Any thoughts or pointers would be very welcome.

Liz

2

Hi Liz,
this does sound very stressful.

It’s such a shame her old care home say they can’t meet her needs.

Personally, I think you would do better finding a nursing near to where you live or a home that offers both care and nursing care. Then you would not need to be doing all the care, but would be able to ensure she had good care and visit her often. Looking after someone 24/7 is very hard and her needs will only get greater. Trying to sort out your Mum and moving homes yourself would be incredibly difficult.

However, whatever you decide, we can offer support along the way.

Melly1

3

Hi Melly1

Thanks for your message and yes I have now decided to find my mum a nursing home local to me and even that is challenging as I navigate my way through the NHS continuing care and social care systems. Still, things are moving gradually and she is now out of hospital and going through what they call community assessment for continuing care. I am told that after this she will be able to move to a care home in Manchester but I am unsure yet how it works - will the CCG in Manchester find the care home or their social care team? Will I? Will there be personal budgets and direct payments involved? So I am navigating my way through all this right now.

One of my immediate concerns is that when I visited last week when mum was still in hospital she still had a catheter. I hope that this was removed when she was discharged from hospital and if not I will be certainly asking questions. My mum is not incontinent or wasn’t before her accident and anyway catheters should not be used to manage incontinence or immobility. So I shall need to find out about that when I arrive in Margate tomorrow (I leave today and stay overnight in a hotel to split up the journey) and this weekend I am also collecting Mums belongings from the old care home. Normally the care homes sort this out between them but the new temporary one is not being very helpful at all (we are only helping the hospital out and only provide accommodation, the rest is up to you).

Anyway I will see what can be resolved and worked through this weekend. Thanks for your help. It really helps to talk

Liz