Hi all, I’m hoping someone can give advice or has experience of a similar problem. My husband has a spinal injury and our district nurses said earlier this year that our bed is too low for them to work with him. We accepted this (despite them having worked with this bed for 10 years). They said they would seek joint funding between NHS and social work for a kingsize profiling bed or for a pair that can push together as they assessed us as a young married couple (mid to late 30s) having a mental and social need to still be able to share a bed (joint funding for his half, not mine which is fine). We didn’t hold our breath. Answer from social work was no and that he would need to accept a hospital bed and I’d need to buy a different bed for myself. So we said we accepted no joint funding but suggested that some of his SDS budget could be used instead to pay for his half and we’d fund my half (even though I’m a student who isn’t working and he’s on a low income of benefits only) so we werent left with the option of hospital bed. We were told today a bed would be inappropriate use of SDS funds and that the assessment of social and mental wellbeing by the band 6 nurse was pretty much irrelevant and only the moving and handling issue was relevant which could be solved by their answer of the hospital bed (so much for integrated working). Despite us being allowed to use SDS budget to replace the mattress in the past, and despite Scottish government legislation and documentation stating that SDS budgets can be used to pay for equipment which meets an individual’s assessed needs and that individuals do not have to accept equipment offered by local authority and can use budget to pay for more expensive equipment as long as the additional amount required is paid by the individual. We aren’t asking for extra money, there is money in his budget that has been saved. We are waiting to hear back from our MSP about it too, but I’m at the point that it’s totally stressing me out. I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall all for something as basic as being allowed to share a bed with my husband and not be relegated to the other side of the room just because he has a disability.
Anyone any suggestions what else we can do / say to social work? 