I posted here a few weeks ago when my father was in hospital with pneumonia. He’s now in a care home with nursing, but was refused CHC. I’m appealing, but this stuff is so wearing! Trying to support my mother as she adjusts to living alone, filling in the financial assessment stuff for the local authority, driving up and down congested motorways to visit, trying to hang on to a bit of my own life… I wish I had more optimism that expending my last dregs of energy on the CHC appeal would do any good.
At least he’s being well looked after, and my mother is less exhausted and stressed than when she was struggling to keep him at home.
I wrote to the CHC people, but have just had all their forms to fill in for the appeal.
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Blots
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You get a free hour of telephone advice and you can use it in increments, not all at once, if you like.
Their rates are low as well.
Your appeal needs to be evidenced based. That is you need to give evidence as to where they made errors in the DST. So you need a copy of your DST and a letter from them giving their reasons for refusing. They are obliged, by law, to provide you with both of these.
Providing evidence is not that hard if you have a copy of the DST instructions. I can give you a link for that if you want to go down that route.From memory you have three months to do the appeal and they have to backdate any care costs if you succeed in getting CHC.
With regard to severity and complexity which is more of a subjective part of the DST. If you think your father is going to deteriorate and have more needs withing three months then that is a good indicator that he meets that criterion.
Thank you. I do have a copy of the DST. I didn’t actually disagree with the categories they assigned, but they went on to describe my father’s condition in a completely misleading way. Things like talking about assisting him to do this that or the other, when in fact he can barely move. Can’t press a button to call for help, can’t feed himself or speak intelligibly &c. They said he should be “encouraged to engage in meaningful activity!” Also, the meeting didn’t include any health care professional who’d actually worked with him, and there was no consideration of progression beyond the standard “will reassess in 12 months.” It’s just insultingly cursory!
Anyway, I detailed the main errors in my letter to them, so it’s not a big job to do it again on their form, but it’s such a pain that dealing with people who are supposedly there to help is like wading through treacle.
I’ll make a note of the link in case I need back up.
Yes, someone who knows him should have been there. It is a requirement which is often ignored. Additionally someone from Social Services should have been there... another requirement.
The Social Services person is required to make a decision as to whether the person is, or is not, "Beyond the limits of Social Services care." This is the dividing line between them and the NHS. If the Social Services declare that it is beyond their legal limit then the NHS has to pick up the care.
If Soc. Serv. were part of the assessment then you might want to write to them asking for the evidence on which their decision was made, If they were not there then you might want to add that as a complaint to the CCG and ask the Soc. Serv. to come and assess that as a matter of urgency.
It’s sometimes hard to know which department people belong to. There was a social worker (though not the one assigned to my father) and a nurse from the CCG who chaired the meeting. Nobody else apart from us (family). Basically the decision was based on his hospital notes.
I felt something between pity and annoyance at the nurse. Who undertakes all that training just so they can spend their time making it extra hard and stressful for people to get the care they need when they’re ill?
They should have had hospital notes, GP letter, consultant letter and reports from everyone involved in his care. They should have read all of those before they came assess. The assessment itself should have been a dialogue with your or your Mum. Not them looking things up. More for your complaint?
If there was no-one there who knew him - more for your complaint.
If you Google NHS DST you can download the DST and guidelines which specify how they are required to proceed.
"I felt something between pity and annoyance at the nurse." Yup, I've been there on that one.
I have the DST and guidelines — which I had read before the meeting. I emailed them the PSP Association’s documents, but I don’t think they’d read them. They sent an email to invite one of the community team member’s who’s worked with my parents, but she only got it half an hour before the start of the meeting, at a different site.
I’m heading up the motorway again tomorrow to visit, so I’ll also be able to form some kind of view on whether he’s deteriorated further since the assessment.
Thanks for your support. It helps to have somewhere to vent!
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