Campaign Care Home

Where are we at?


So far we have as a family emailed MPs, councillors, heads of local authority and adult social services alike.  The understanding that we have thus far is that the owner of the care home did not declare any difficulties they were facing to the Local Authority . This is in spite of the fact that the residents are funded by the local authority. Which provisionally suggests a serious lack of communication and responsibility. 


The responses I have received from aforementioned stakeholders has been more than disappointing, but I think this would have always been the case in light of such a sensitive situation.  Even with the hoohah with Southern Cross (amongst others - which some of the people I have been in contact with have actually expressed as a cause for concern and a situation they want to avoid again) there is still no real clear procedure for a care home closure - which as you can imagine makes an already stressful situation pretty confusing. 


The thing is from my perspective surely after the mass closure of homes through Southern Cross you would have thought that they would have implemented a series of contingency plans/ structures for when another situation arises (which given the current economic climate is an inevitability)? 


The documentation/letters I have received have been really inaccessible to people who are not aux fait with public sector lingo, acronyms and so forth. This could make pitching your case and arguing your position particularly difficult. Luckily my Persian arrogance washes over any fear and I am convinced I am doing the best I can with the limited resources I have. 


So now we are in a position of wait. There has been some talk of moving her out of the area, which would be very sad and also make it very difficult for us to visit her. But until a place comes up they are limited in what they can do and because of her various needs there has to be a specific care match. If the worse case scenario presents itself and we get to the day of closure and still have no suitable placement we just have to accept whatever place is offered to her with the view that we will have to go through the process again and re-home her until a suitable care matched placement is found. 


To me that does not seem very cost effective or a very good use of resources. But if there are no places, there are no places and we can not change that. But I will still shout about it and thankfully I think I have found a pool of people who will help me.  


In addition
 Now as a family we have an interesting dynamic and have another relative whose home is also facing closure.He is not a pensioner yet.


 But he is an individual who has spent the majority of his adult life institutionalised. He is mentally ill.  He is my uncle, or as I call him my favourite uncle. He is amazing. He has taught me so much about how to treat people. He is completely and utterly bonkers. But completely and utterly adorable. This means I have been in and out of care homes and rehabilitation centres visiting him since childhood and so I have a very high threshold for oddities. 


  People see him in the street and cross the road. People will shout abuse at him. Despite this he still has a relatively sunny disposition (on the proviso he has taken his medication). 


 His daily routine is very fixed. Part of his routine involves visiting his mother and/or calling her.  To change any part of his routine always has catastrophic consequences which we always have to deal with. I know this well. I know this because unfortunately his son died partly because of the failings of a housing placement he had through adult social services. When that happened I promised my uncle, along with my siblings and my mother that we would always help him as much as we can forever more. It was devastating. I have promised him in the last week that I will find him the best home I possibly can for him. Because all I want is for him to be happy, because his life is so limited in what he can do, that it is of paramount importance that wherever we can minimise his upset and distress that we endeavour to do so. He is after all my favourite uncle. 


How does this relate to Nanny?
 So now, his mums home is closing and his home is closing. Again from a cost effective exercise if both of these relatives of mine are not appropriately rehoused then unfortunately there will be further issues, which undoubtedly will cost the local authority more money. When I raised this in a meeting - we got told this was a small factor which they would consider. Completely illogical. It is a major factor. Both their cases need to be looked at in tandem. 


So now what?


I am going to continue to behave like my mother does when she wants me to clean something I have no interest in ,as a "Nag Attack". I will not stop until I know that the pair of them are in new and nice homes where their needs are best met.


I would have liked to have made this funnier by including a typical conversation with my Uncle and I. But that can wait.