I am at the end of my tether here and just don't know what to do. It has been such a dreadful day. It is just making me ill.
He is still paranoid and confused - he thinks people are being processed on the ward and disposed of down a chute, and that there are gases and things dissolving his limbs. But in between this lot he can be relatively lucid.
We were told that he would go home with a package of care of 2 carers 4 times a day - that this is free (joint NHS and SSD funded) and also includes physio visits and could continue for up to 6 weeks. After that he would need care, either funded by continuing health care (NHS) or by a means-tested social care plan.
So, today the social worker breezes in and says we have just had an MDT meeting, the upshot of which is that they cannot offer this any more as the care agency associated with the scheme has insufficient carers (and they cannot use another agency). So.....they plan to ship him off to the same unit that he did not want before (and the consultant agreed was inappropriate) for intensive rehab TODAY (I have a sense of deja vu here) to create a situation where he might not need 2 carers - Poor OH has already made his feelings clear about going there. He just wants to go home. I did point out to them that he is not a parcel!
She then said they could do a social needs assessment and a means test and put in carers from agencies that they deal with, but we would have to pay towards it if the means test decreed this. I did venture to tell her that this is actually illegal - that a health needs assessment for continuing care funding has to be done before they can means test for "social needs." Even if we went down this route she said we would have to accept care from their chosen agencies - and once again I had to explain to her that this is not true - that there is a "direct payments" scheme under which we can choose who we have.
Now here is the rub....they will not do the health needs assessment in an acute hospital but only either at home or in a community hospital. How mad is that? You get assessed for your health needs when you are already home even though you cannot be at home without the care.
So I have no choice but to go down the social needs assessment and means test even though it is illegal - they have got me over a barrel.
Because the "client" must be involved they are talking about all this in front of my OH and he is becoming increasingly agitated.
I just despair of it all - I rally feel quite ill over it. He has already endured appalling care in one ward and now they want him out of where he is, but there seems to be some sort of dystopian world where noting makes any sense any more.
If he was eligible for the scheme outlined to us initially, then why should he now not be eligible just because one care agency happens not to have the capacity - they refuse to try another. Am I going crazy here, or is this utterly mad?
I am planning not to go in and visit tomorrow as I have reached my end here.
.