Social workers - a rant

[TimberWolf]

I always had this daft idea about family relations. I always thought that kids tried to be deliberately different from their parents, and then their kids would go the other way.

The net result being that we end up very like our grandparents. A sort of pendulum type thingy

Kids will complain about everything and say how much better life was before the war?

[d000hg]

Can we have a General General forum for this sort of stuff?

How about General and "The Cage"

[suityou01]

My Grandfather is in hospital and has been for the last 3 weeks. He is in good health, but has some form of Dementia. He was living with my mother and father up until 3 weeks ago when they called him an ambulance as they said he was confused and aggressive.

He had low sodium levels which were largely attributed to the confusion. These are rectified.
My mother has refused to take him back home. Also she has refused to visit him in hospital for fear of the social workers trying to get her to take him back, or being asked to fork out money for a care home.

I have taken next of kin status and have been regularly visiting, dealing with the hospital, social workers and prospective care homes. I visited no less than 7 care homes last Saturday under the pretence that he had been awarded full funding.

Then we had a meeting yesterday to discuss his ongoing care, and they were scoring him on various charts. Apparently the result of these scores means he no longer gets full funding as they deem he doesn't need it.

He is 93, paritally blind, deaf, severly cognitively impaired (their words) and can barely walk.

This means the care homes I looked at last week are all too dear, and my first choice home needs a £43 per week top up they want me to pay.

I have asked to appeal the decision, they have said they will just put him in the first home they can as they want the bed back. Their first choice was in last weeks paper with an expose on how poorly treated the "inmates" were.

I am effectively been blackmailed by them. I am quite livid.

Questions in my mind are

a) How did they change their minds over the funding?
b) Why was the process not properly explained
c) Why did they let me waste an entire Saturday looking at homes when they were all too dear, why not agreed the budget first and then give me a list of homes within that budget.

I wrote to the bank last November on his behalf to cancel all direct debits. One such DD was to my mother for his board and keep. On his request to cancel this as he is no longer living with my mother I wrote the letter, put it in a manilla envelope along with 1st class stamp and posted it to the bank.

2.5 months later it has been returned to me from the royal mail as there is an additional £1.10 postage.

This means

1 I am an utter utter thick twat that doesn't understand the cost of posting an A4 envelope.
2 The direct debits weren't cancelled.
3 The royal mail are inefficient (but we knew this)
4 My mother has been coining in his board and keep and keeping quiet about it while he is in the care home.
5 I have been paying the £225 top up fees.

Seriously, I am just one of life's bellends.

Changing my sig to "Kick me, you know you want to"

[RichardCranium]

Let yourself off the hook.

I wrote to the bank last November.

2.5 months later it has been returned to me from the royal mail as there is an additional £1.10 postage.

It's the Royal Fail that are the bell-ends.

APFU.

[suityou01]

Let yourself off the hook.

It's the Royal Fail that are the bell-ends.

APFU.

Got me there dude.

Thanks for the sentiment.

[OwlHoot]

I wrote the letter, put it in a manilla envelope along with 1st class stamp and posted it to the bank.

2.5 months later it has been returned to me from the royal mail as there is an additional £1.10 postage.

Sounds like in your desperate efforts to avoid creasing the DD cancellation form the "manilla envelope" was A4.

A year or two ago the Post Office started charging by envelope/package dimensions, rather than weight as before, to be more consistent with other EU postage services.

So in summary, you're not a bellend but you've been shafted yet again by the EU.

(unless one argues that it's bellendish to have forgotten about or not twigged the new postage charging rules)

[suityou01]

Sounds like in your desperate efforts to avoid creasing the DD cancellation form the "manilla envelope" was A4.

A year or two ago the Post Office started charging by envelope/package dimensions, rather than weight as before, to be more consistent with other EU postage services.

So in summary, you're not a bellend but you've been shafted yet again by the EU.

(unless one argues that it's bellendish to have forgotten about or not twigged the new postage charging rules)

This is the source of my suspected bellendry

[RichardCranium]

Got me there dude.

What sort of list is that, FFS?

[suityou01]

What sort of list is that, FFS?

Can you post a link to a decent one, that contains a listing for APFU?

Or have you started making up acronyms as well?

[mudskipper]

Can you post a link to a decent one, that contains a listing for APFU?

Or have you started making up acronyms as well?

A postal F U I imagine.

Got a card through the door - item to collect from post office, underpaid postage (for which they charge £1 on top of the underpayment). Says it's to "k2p2 and family". Probably a Christmas card. So they want me to pay an extra pound on top of postage for a Christmas card that they've sat on for a month. Fantastic.