Our son is 47, cerebral palsy from birth, we are late 60s now. We have enjoyed respite care for many years but an episode at the only respite care home on offer two years ago led to a hospital stay, wrong diagnosis, and extreme trauma for the family.
We were told he was likely to die. And we rushed back from our long awaited break. A long story which started with poor care at a care home that had no medical cover available from the local GP, and ended after many months with the realisation that the problem was constipation and not the "(possible) aspiration pneumonia" (hospital's words) that he was being treated for. Poor care, poor handover, poor diagnosis.
The CQC have been contacted but so far no action taken. The local council continue to offer only that place. Of course we cannot use it. We cannot even mention the name of the place in front of our son. Nor even go near the place when out and about. Social services suggest direct payments and in-house care. We don't want additional responsibilities that direct payments bring and we doubt carers will be able to work within the rules and regs in our home. We as parents always manage of course.
And so we carry on, now with no respite care arrangements in place. An apathetic social services dept (note, not the social workers themselves!) who ignore the dangers of contracting a care home with no GP cover (social services and the care home knew this but no-one mentioned it to CQC). We need help not danger and ignorance.
A suitable care home, professionally run, with proper medical support in place and working, properly equipped for those who are entirely dependant on others, with space and quiet, is all that we ask. Kind of what we had back in the day, really. But it has gone.
