So my brother walks to dad’s now – my brother’s retired – but he walks to my dad’s on a daily basis around this sort of time to make sure he has lunch. So he’s had his breakfast in the morning, which is, we pay for the care and then my brother comes in just to make sure he has enough for his lunch, and then we leave him in the evening for a-, and we will do as long as we’re able to.

But, you know, I have started to talk to my dad, actually even yesterday, I was saying, you know, “The point where we’re not comfortable that you’re eating properly in the evenings we will have to get an evening call for you.” And he was accepting of it yesterday, he said, “Yes, but I don’t need it at the moment.” He says he eats and I think that’s you know, that’s important; there are just the two of us so my brother’s on his own as well, so I think in a way it’s OK. But my brother’s quite young, he’s not, although he’s retired if, he only reached retirement age yesterday actually, but he took early retirement. But he does say that he needs, he, I think he wants to continue to work, maybe in a consultancy role of some sort, and I think that’s when we’re going to need to see how we manage dad, because at the moment there’s a comfort for me is that my brother’s there but it’s a huge responsibility for my brother because his life is centred around dad; and I think that’s what happens, he’s that sort of unpaid carer.

Finally found a place and dad was very concerned, “How much is this going to cost? How much is this going to cost?” And I said, “Dad, we’ll work that out, we will work it out with you as to what it will cost.” But of course as it happened when we actually did all the assessments and everything it was a fully funded placement because my mum also had a she had a hypertrophic, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is a heart condition. So she qualified for the funding from the NHS. Now the challenge here is that many people will struggle with that because they actually won’t be able to understand the form filling and all of that; so I think it is a huge challenge. I knew the system so it was very different in that I was able to work with the home; and the best thing is the managers of the services in care homes, if that is where you’re going to go down the route, they are the ones that should be able to support you through the process of how the funding can work, because they should have the knowledge and the experience to be looking at the different funds that are available. In some cases you do find providers are not really inclined to support but that is where the best support is.

Yes, they came, they came and did a needs assessment on him as to what he could and couldn’t do, and he sat there telling them he could everything which was really interesting, because the assessor just looked at him coming across the room and realised he couldn’t do anything [laughs] bless him. And he gets very angry, he gets very, very angry if somebody doubts his word; so she could see that the frustration was there. So, you know, they’re trained to do that, they know if you’re if you’re just, you know trying it on or, you know, what’s for sure; and actually we thought he’d get a lower rate of attendance allowance and she just said, “No, he’s, he needs the higher rate.”

Dad’s, anyway he was, he was awarded Attendance Allowance at the higher rate and so he then which included having, you know monitors and everything in the house; so we’ve got all that in; and he’s paying for care, he’s paying for somebody to come in every morning to make sure he has his medication and his breakfast and he’s loving it.

What happens is if you’re discharged out of hospital and you’re going to be living independently in your own home, then the hospital, they set into operation a re-enablement programme whereby your needs are assessed and then that, those needs are met for that 6 week period, and the purpose of that is to grade it down as it goes, as more independent you become the less care you receive; and it works really well and, in many cases, because people get back to living in their own home, they’ll have a carer coming in in the morning, one in the evening, one in the afternoon, whatever it might be; I think it was four times a day, which was far too much. He was really unhappy about it didn’t want it, so we kept reducing it and they wouldn’t sign him off until, so they, they were confident, and after the 6, they actually extended that period, because they thought he was so unstable, for another, I think they extended it for another month, I can’t remember now and the, and the budget holder has that, you know, they can do that, social workers have that option if they think they can eventually make that person independent and in dad’s case it did work.