moving my brother closer to his family for care?

[NatL]

hi everyone,

so my brother lives in Lincoln on his own and has no family around him. so far he has coped independently and sister and elderly mother take turns driving over to see him (from Manchester) every other week to do his shopping, shave him, wash his clothes, take him food he can put in the oven and clean his house.

when he started deteriorating we had the doctor and social care team in who assessed him and said he was competent to care for him self. The doc arrange meds and care packages were put into place which he later declined and gradually bit by bit he has refused cleaners, companionships and pretty much everything.

he doesn’t see or speak to anyone apart from my sister and mum every other week when they take turns to make the mammoth drive down. he is in worse states every time they go and isn’t eating or taking eds and his personal care is failing massively. he will reluctantly let you shave his face and take a bag of ashing every now and again but that is where it ends. he isn’t able to see when he has soiled himself and cannot clean it up either. he has dropped and broken glasses and then cut himself and has also fell numerous times. he did have the care call button for a while but stopped wearing it and then refused to pay for it too. we would pay for the care packages as a family but he wont use the facilities available and as mentioned previously doesn’t want help from random people.

to cut the long story short we want to move him closer to us his family so we can help him more and enable him to live independently but safely. we have contacted social care again in his area who aren’t rushing to assess him or help in any way and we have spoken to the social housing in the area my family live who have advised he needs to sign up and bid on adapted properties, again unachievable for someone who is unaware if they have eaten, taken meds or soiled themselves… we have spoke to him for a while about potentially selling his home and buying one closer to us but we never really went any further as he wouldn’t be able to cope having estate agents round etc and viewings as he is unable to remember basic things and would get confused and couldn’t go out while anyone was viewing the property, plus would he even have the capacity to move homes? sign legal docs etc? obviously we know he would need to be assessed to establish his mental capacity etc in order or someone to be appointed to carry out decisions for him but again he may be deemed ok to make his own decisions as he was last time which has resulted in the deterioration of his health as he stopped caring for himself and taking meds to slow the progression etc.

im hoping someone may have experienced a similar situation or have some advise as we are stuck as to what we can do to move this forward.

many thanks for reading my huge post

Nat

[Matt]

Hi Nat,

I do think you are on the right track in believing that your brother will be better off if you are able to move him closer to where family are located. Your first port of call in trying to achieve this, I think, is through contact with your brother’s med team - I assume he has a GP and Consultant assigned to him ? I think you should write to either expressing the family concerns about your brother and asking if a meeting could take place. You should make your brother aware this is what you and others in the family have in mind and ensure it coincides with a time when your sister and mum are visiting him. At that meeting, you should then have on the agenda, your anxieties about the downward trend in your brother’s health, a plan moving forward and I think you should be thinking about POA’s both for welfare and health and for finances and ideally share these concerns with the GP or Consultant ahead of the meeting. I think you should be ready to stress to your brother that in taking forward POA’s, you are wanting what will be best for him and you would need to explain how assisting with the responsibility of filling in forms and helping to decide with him, plans for the future, will help him in the long run. Explain for instance if he is nearer to you, he will be able to see your sister and mum more frequently for instance.

Its good that you have consulted the Council in your local area about accommodation. From what you and they have said, it seems clear to me that he wouldn’t be able to sign up for looking for an adapted property himself which is where the POA’s come in and from there, he would need family to choose accommodation for him and sign the various forms on his behalf.

I think once you have hopefully successfully ‘sold’ the idea to your brother about the move from Lincoln to Manchester, perhaps involving his current medical team to help endorse that as a good idea, you can assist him with the move and then once he has made it, you can think about the selling of the Lincoln property.

At the meeting with your brother’s current medical team, you would need potentially to ask his consultant to source a consultant who could look after your brother’s case in your local area and it might be that you could consult with the family GP as well before he makes the move, so he has GP support lined up.

It seems clear to me though that your brother would benefit from making this move, and from what you have described, for him to do this, sooner if possible.

I have been a carer to someone with MS for a long time, and had to set up care packages and POA’s when things got challenging. I’ve not been in a similar situation beyond that. Happy to answer any queries.

Hope that helps and I hope things work out OK.

Matt