Social care financial assessment - help for my brother re. care and equipment

Aardvark77

Hello, please forgive the long and complicated post - but any advice would be really helpful!

My brother has been in hospital for 2 months as he was very seriously ill. He has impaired mobility, which means that he can hardly walk, and has severe gout in his hands also, plus a host of other medical issues that need constant attention, including severe eczema that needs cleaning and bandaging regularly.

He works as a freelance consultant, which means that clients come to see him in his home office. He is married with a 5-year-old daughter.

He part-owns a 1-bed flat together with our mother but this is not suitable for him and his wife and child to live in, so he uses the income from this to pay for a rental home.

He has now been assessed as medically OK to return home, however he has greater needs for both care and equipment than when he went into hospital. His wife was his official carer, however prior to him going into hospital she had been struggling to cope and both care and food being prepared for him were unreliable before he went in. 

Some time before this, he had been receiving extra care under the scheme that was offered during the pandemic, however when this was stopped, he could not afford to pay for the care himself.

He undertook a financial assessment with the local authority, however they refused to pay for his care, stating that because he part-owns the flat with my mother, they are counting this as 'capital', so they have assessed him as able to pay for the care himself.

However, as he needs the income from the flat to pay for his rent, it is not actually the case that he can pay for his care. He challenged the decision twice, however the LA refused to budge, and he was left unable to have care, which led to him neglecting himself - he was unable to take care of his eczema and couldn't manage self-cleaning and preparing food by himself, which I believe partly led to him ending up in hospital.

He now needs a minimum of 2 care visits per day to help with self-cleaning, dressing and food preparation. He is now scared to go upstairs to bed but his landlord won't agree to provide a stair lift, so the OT and social worker have advised that the best way for him to move forward quickly would be to have a bed in his office, which could be potentially provided by the LA and NHS. He has agreed this in principle, however he is only willing to have a chairbed that can fold back to a chair, in order that he can continue receiving clients.

However, the OT has told him that if he wants to be discharged sooner he should agree to have a hospital bed, however this will not fit in the office unless he removes important shelves with books that he needs for his work. Also, he doesn't want a bed in his office due to how unprofessional this might look to clients.

I am currently helping do a financial assessment again to submit to the LA, and have spoken extensively with the OT at the hospital as well as his social worker. However, the process is taking a long time and he is desperate to return to work as the longer he remains in hospital the less income he will receive from work, and he is also worried that the longer he takes to get back to work, there will be a higher risk of him losing clients.

We are also both very worried that the LA will come back with the same answer regarding his 'capital' as before and thus will refuse to offer him enough care, and also that he will be put under pressure to accept a bed that is not suitable for his needs, with the NHS/LA both putting pressure on him to accept a situation that will not work in the longer term and, if care is not provided to him, could have a serious impact on his health and life expectancy.

I would be very grateful for any thoughts or advice on his rights in respect of the above, in order to know how to advocate effectively on my brother's behalf.

Many thanks in advance.

Ross_Alumni

Hello @Aardvark77

Thanks for making this post, sorry to hear of everything your brother is going through, it must be really hard for him and your family at the moment because you all clearly just want what is best for him.

I have marked your post as unanswered, and really hope that you can get an outcome that works for your brother.

Aardvark77

Thanks very much Ross!

poppy123456

That's a very sad situation and i'm sorry to hear this.

Just a thought but is your mother state pension age? If not, does she have a health condition? If either of those apply then you could go down the route of either of those would make it extremely difficult for her to move and/or get a mortgage to buy him out.

Other than that i don't have any answers for you but i hope he finds the help he needs.

thara9643

I wanted to add my own lengthy response.

Welcome to the online community first of all.

Now onto the serious issues that you mentioned in your original post, perhaps consider getting a care needs assessment done. You can contact your local council first thing in the morning via phone or email in order to start the process. Best wishes to you and your family. Make some brief summary notes at all stages of the application process for your own peace of mind.

A care needs assessment is the first step of the journey. A social worker will typically conduct the needs assessment to determine what kind of needs you have etc. Be totally honest with this person. After that you will usually receive a thorough report detailing his or her findings and any helpful recommendations as well in any case.

Be sure to pay very close and careful attention to what is contained in the actual final report. It matters. Make the most of the assessment, this is your only chance to tell someone how you truly feel and so on. Do not do what I did which is to state that things at home were nowhere near as bad as they think. They were not but I really do wish I had not messed up. Only after this is done will any real support be arranged on a daily basis. In other words never fudge any answers to their well meaning questions. 

Once the report comes, ensure that you read it. Highlight any words or inaccuracies in red. 

Aardvark77

Thank you so much!

Aardvark77

Thank you @Teddybear12!