Hi

does anybody on here have any experience of this, it appears that things might be heading that way and I was wondering if anybody on here had any knowledge/experience of this area. I’m starting to read up on it and just wondered if anybody had dealings in this area and could give me any tips/hints/suggestions on what the process is etc

Thanks

sorry to hear that. We have managed to side step the care home / nursing home route and place my mum in very sheltered housing instead – would this also be an option to your family?

Look up Hanover Housing in particular in that regard.

Get ready to check the CCC or whatever it’s called these days reports into care homes, also see if you can get referrals and recommendations (or lack of) in the local area. There is a *huge* variety.

If you could find – locally – some trusted carers, care at home may be an option and no more expensive than care home costs.

Recently my wife had to place her mother into permanent care. She has dementia and we have managed her at home for the last year, with much help from personal carers. Finally had to make the decision as we couldn’t manage any longer.

Homes can vary widely, both in facilities and staffing. You need to research carefully and find somewhere that suits the person and you. Can be very expensive if you don’t qualify for state provision, think up to £1000 per week. This will quickly eat away any savings.

Fortunately Scotland has very good support. Personal and nursing care can be funded which will help with costs.

Hope it works out for you.

Mike

It is very difficult. I was lucky, I had a friend who had temp nursed in a lot of the homes and she basically just gave me a list of homes not to touch with a 10 foot pole. The standard of care varies wildly, the first rule seems to be not to trust care homes sadly.

My grandma was registered blind and suffered from dementia, luckily she got into Braeside House in Edinburgh which was just brilliant.

Watching this post & replies with interest, sadly. I’ll be back home next week and I’ll be having some difficult conversations with sister re whether we are now at this point with mum. Not helped by me being 400 miles away, with moving back not an option in the near future.
Finding it all really difficult to come to terms with, to be honest.

Always a difficult decision. Wife’s mother was down in Cornwall, we are in Scotland. Management was impossible so we moved her up. Built a granny annex for her but she wouldn’t stay in it. Had personal carers 6 hours day plus Social dept. carers 3 times a day.

Finally wife accepted we couldn’t continue as it was affecting everybody. So she moved her to a care home, but she still blamed herself for not doing enough. Care home staff are now saying they don’t know how we carried on so long (about a year).

First things first, get a social work assessment done. This will tell you what help she qualifies for, assessments can take a while though so don’t wait until things reach crisis before looking into this. Sheltered, very sheltered and extra care housing are excellent alternatives to care homes for some people. As said above, Hanover are very good as are Trust. Provision will depend where abouts in Scotland you are.

Care inspectorate publish inspection reports and grades for all registered services on their website. Take care though to look beyond just the grade and read the actual report, sometimes the grade will be low because of poor admin but the care provision still really good. Trust you instinct as well though, visiting places will give you a good idea of what feels right.

Where abouts in Scotland are you?

Arran and Ayrshire, the ‘final’ meeting is happening soon, touch and go between home and ‘home’ as far as I can make out. There are only 2 homes in his town, and I really wouldn’t want him being miles from his few remaining friends, I’m not yet sure how that side of things works.

Its pretty awkward, I’m 400 miles away and still working, so am awaiting outcomes etc. I know him, I know his feelings on the subject currently waiting to see what happens.

Visit the places unannounced and look beyond your initial impression of how clean and organised the place is. Look at how happy the residents are. There are many places out there that are regimentally clean and people hate living there…

Sorry to hear the news.

Social Care policy (like elsewhere) prefers that people are helped to live at home with additional support wherever possible. Some of how that is done is at the discretion of the Local Authority (East, North or South Ayrshire in the area you mention – each a little different in its approach).

‘client preference’ is a strong factor in selection of residential placements, so depending on current circumstances you may have some time and options to consider. Visits are a good idea – you’ll know by the smell as soon as you walk in the door.

Scotland differs markedly from England in that Personal Care is free, although some services (non-personal care) are not. Financial contributions are based on a scale set by the local authority. You still have the choice to self-fund and could follow an entirely private route if you wished.

A social work assessment will provide access to funded services, based on local eligibility thresholds. Provision can be obtained as a service (managed by the LA, but possibly provided by an independent body; or can be taken as self-directed support (in the form of credits, or actual money) but must be used to meet agreed care outcomes.

The social work department will also be able to advise on other forms of local support, but view vary as to whether this is seen as helpful, or ‘fobbing off’. There’s not many easy answers I’m afraid.

I’d hazard a suggestion that with the right support visits, or perhaps personal care (which could be via a carer arranged/chosen by him via self-directed support), proximity to friends etc is an important consideration. Further than that, a lot depends on the specifics of his circumstances and needs.

Hope this is of some help, best wishes – remember there really is quite a lot of choice.

My girlfriend used to work in procurement of care services for a local authority, part of which involved site visits and incident investigations. Sometimes she’d come home based on the worst places she saw, a few times she’d come home really happy that some places had been really good (innovative care for dementia sufferers rather than essentially locked in a room).
Scswis did all the inspections, pretty sure it’s not too hard to get a history of reports.

Inspection Reports– they call themselves the Care Inspectorate now, but essentially the same. If it was my relative I’d be looking for grade scores of 5 or 6.