Need some advise please for a friend. She is the main carer for her husband who has dementia. She has had a fall and broken an arm. Discharged same day from hospital straight back home and expected to resume her carers role. GP doesn’t seem bothered, social services “ will get back to you” WHAT on earth does she need to do to get some help !!
Tell Social Services to arrange emergency respite immediately as she cannot care for her husband!
Social services dragged feet until the District nurse visited and was horrified. All sorted by the end of the day. Shame it took the nurse to see the seriousness of the situation
Good.
Sorry I’m late to the party, but felt it was important to say that it wasn’t really the local authority social services or GP’s(and certainly not the DNs) responsibility to ensure that your friend was supported to resume her usual role when she was discharged. You don’t say how old she is, but I would have thought that as a minimum she should have had an occupational therapy assessment for herself and the hospital social worker should have been involved too.
They shouldn’t be assuming that, even if someone’s not a carer, they can manage their personal care , shopping and cooking with 1 arm out of action and they should be finding out if there’s anyone who can help. Essentially its an unsafe hospital discharge, and they wonder why people end up being readmitted within a few days or even hours?
They tried to do this with my Mum who shops, cooks and does laundry etc for my Dad and her. He has carers for most personal care. She had a severe nosebleed that required packs up her nose for 48 hrs. She’s 85 and lost a fair amount of blood which left her weak and dehydrated and her BP was falling by 40mm Hg when she stood for more than a few minutes so she was at risk of fainting/falling. After I spoke to the “cause for concern” team as the ward staff were clueless, a NP saw her and they put a drip up for 24 hrs.
Physio’s saw her and they decided she could come home. I asked her on the phone if she was Ok walking now and she told me they were sending her home with a zimmer frame. Not sure how they expected her to carry food and drinks through to the living room where they eat. I called and said she needed an OT assessment and also some help with personal care at least for a week or so while we were monitoring her BP etc.
Hospitals have tunnel vision!
Mum went for a carpal tunnel assessment. No one noticed she relied heavily on a Zimmer frame. Planned day surgery, without considering if she could use a Zimmer frame with one arm in a sling, when living alone!!!