Respite Care

[Bracken]

General question really, how difficult or easy have you found it to get proper, structured respite in your area via Adult Social Services?

Thanks.

[christina 17]

Hi Bracken

I have not posted on CarerUK before, So hope it works ok.
What kind of Respite were you requiring?
My elderly Mum has just been to respite for a week, for the first time.

Do you live in the area or are visiting the area where the respite is likely to be organised?
If you live in the area, it's much easier to look around and see yourself residential or nursing homes and then you can compare and have a better idea.

[Bracken]

Hi Christina, it worked just fine. Looking more at the actual process of getting the respite you need rather than the practicalities of where they would go. We have, for a great number of years, constantly been denied respite. No beds, no funding excuse after excuse after excuse.

I wondered if this was a nationwide issue, a local issue, etc.

[Anne001]

Hi Bracken,

My mum had a couple of weeks of respite care (2 X 1 week). To get it funded, I had to be desperate enough to threaten to walk away if no respite was found. The next difficulty was finding a suitable bed which took phone calls to approx 20 homes, all while working full time. I could also not plan a holiday because bed availability was only confirmed at the last minute. In fact we were packed and ready to go when there was a last minute hitch which almost cancelled the respite. This all took place in one of the poorest London boroughs with a high elderly population. At the end the respite worked well and mum even found herself an admirer . It was though very stressful getting there.

[Bracken]

Thank you Anne, I am so sorry that you have had a similar experience to us. Something is very very wrong in this country whereby money can be found for anything our Government so chooses and yet carers and their families are all but forgotten.

I think they tick a box that reads "Phew, family have assumed responsibility ha bloody ha ha, MUGS". We are on the receiving end of a heavy handed Social Worker right now but I am fighting back. The 440 odd pages of the Care Act 2014 that I dissected in the week made interesting reading and I think they have contravened pretty much every part of it so far!! Happy days. Apparently we are meant to be perfect whilst they can fail on every count and be beyond reproach!

[Pennie]

I would suggest that when you next have a meeting with your SW you take along any pages of that document with the contraventions marked with the most fluorescent highlighter you can find!

I remember reading somewhere (but may be mistaken), that LAs cannot refuse you your statutory entitlements (eg. so many week's respite per year) purely because of financial cut-backs. However, I think that only those who shout loudest and longest will probably get anywhere.

Pennie

[Bracken]

Oh Pennie believe you me the highlighter pen is shouting off the page again and again and again lol. I've gone to town, trust me, I have totally gone to town. After the experience we have had I would not advise a single one of my friends to take on their elderly parents, not ever. The concept of care in the community is a misnomer, as is any idea that anybody out there actually cares about you as a family, your needs, your sanity or anything else for that matter.

Until, that is, it suits them. Then all hell lets loose off of the back of something somebody reports, the size 12s descend and the judgmental loons have a field day. Sadly for my parents there is only going to be one outcome from this and it is not what they want and not what we want but I, we, are not prepared to continue doing this any longer under these circumstances.

Statutory weeks? My physical and mental wellbeing? HAH! I actually need surgery to my knee and my back, their response? Well we can send in a carer to heat up a meal once a day but other than that we can't offer any other support and certainly not respite!! Hope they have a robust 2016 budget that's all I can say!

[bowlingbun]

Ever thought about making a "Subject Access Request" to see what they've written about you? I'm persistent like you, clearly they never thought I'd make a SAR judging by the insults traded between themselves about me!!!

[Bracken]

Biding my time...... but yes...... you told me how last weekend and it will be done.

[Eun]

Its impossible because palliative respite care for young adults (21-45) doesn't exist. When my son and the others are kicked out of the children's hospices due to the introduction of a cut off age there is nowhere else for them to go as adult hospices do not offer respite.

Eun