I am helping my wife (pensioner) look after her parents (91 & 94)
Her mother (94) (Mrs X) really needs to go into care as she is not being looked after properly.
She has severe dementia. There is a “Home Help/Care Person” going once a week to give her a shower but she refuses it and has not had a shower or a wash for nearly a month. The lady who goes to cut her hair now refuses to do it. She also has “accidents” at the house they were renting the bedroom carpet is badly soiled and were given a section 21 Notice to quit. She is on different medicines but does not take them, after clearing the house we are taking a suitcase of unopened boxes of medicines back to the pharmacist for them to dispose of.
Basically her husband cannot look after her properly and only feeds her cereals to eat (we do the shopping) We are going to have to stop going as last week my wife had a suspected heart attack and was taken to hospital, out now but waiting to go for a scan. And I am over 80
What needs to be done or said for Social Services to make the decision that she needs to go into care.
All replies suggestions gratefully received.
Hey @Nosmo_King, what you need to do is phone social services and explain the situation to them but also contact her GP and anyone else who knows about her and they should be able to help you. Just watch with the landlord as they might use the section 21 as a way to bully them out of place, if that does happen, you can contact the council, social services and the police about it and they will deal with it. Best of luck.
Social Services must do an immediate investigation, TODAY, as mum is a vulnerable adult. My brain is addled this morning due to some strong medication, I just can’t find the right term!
Hi @Nosmo_Kin,
welcome to the forum.
Contact social services and say you have safe guarding concerns about Mrs X, and explain he details you have given us. Also include the information that she is about to be evicted.
Also request an urgent Needs assessment for her and it sounds like her husband may need one too?
If social care ask about your wife and the care she and you provide, you need to state that this is no longer possible as your wife is now poorly and you need to care for her.
It is really important to stress that no one has failed, there is nothing to feel guilty about. Everyone has done their very best but mum now needs 24/7 care. Given dad’s age, a possible solution could be them both moving eventually to the same residential care home. No one can be forced to care, you and your wife need to enjoy a quiet peaceful retirement together. If they have under £46,000 between them the council will subsidise the care. Has mum been receiving any disability benefits? Does anyone have Power of Attorney? Feel free to ask anything here, my lovely mum in law developed dementia and her last year was spent in secure accommodation. Enncorage your wife to concentrate on what mum now NEEDS. My own mum also spent her last year in residential care, we had done everything possible to support her at home but she was so frail she was unable to even roll over in bed. It’s a very emotional time. Just remembered, as mum lacks mental capacity, Social Services should have a Best Interests meeting deciding her long term care.
Sorry I did not put my question properly, I used to deal with Social Services when I was a Foster Carer, then I was told that they had a criteria for deciding if a child needed to be taken into care, perhaps four things like, Not being fed, No clothes and not being washed, left alone when a parent went out drinking /drugs. Then they made the decision, told the police, the child or children were taken and given to Foster Carers i.e ( You get a phone call at 11 pm asking if you can take a child and when you say “Yes” they say they are in a van , outside.
So my questtiion is, There must be a criteria when Social Services look at a 94 year old woman who has not had a shower or wash for a month, apparently only wants to eat cereal twice a day, doesn’t take her medicine (We are taking a very large box full of medicines back to the pharmacist to dispose of) The disgusting state of the house they were renting is why they were given a section 21 notice to quit)
Surely all the above would prompt Social Services to say she should go into care.
(her husband (91) cant do anything as 6 years ago he had a triple heart bypass)
As far as I know (and I have more experience than I ever wanted!) there is nothing as specific as that. If there are lots of pills going back, who was prescribing them? Did they never see mum??
The Dr prescribed them, it was her husband (my father in law, her carer) who is supposed to make sure that she has her pills, what happens is she refuses to take them, just as when she refuses to have a shower when the lady from the car agency arrives to give her a shower, he just accepts it, he has his own health issues, and yesterday when my wife went there was a pool of urine on the floor in the bedroom of the new house they have just rented, fortunately we had put new cushion flooring (lino) on the floor of the bedroom and my wife had to wipe it up.
A friend of mine had to get her mother with dementia sectioned. This would involved the hospital and the mental health team. She called the ambulance and that was that. Her mother was on a psych ward untill a care home place was found. Unfortunately, it often takes a trip to hospital to get a care home place allocated.
Has she ever seen a CPN, Community Psychiatric Nurse? Not sure is they are in your area with that title, may be something slightly different.