My dad has been in care home for assessment over a number of weeks. He is now to be discharged home with carers in place but there are no carers doing community visits at the moment according to social work so, they are wanting to put him residential care for the time being but struggling to get somewhere. Dad has vascular dementia and doing brilliant, he’s fully independent. We are wanting to bring him here as we have loads of room for him but social work have only advised we didn’t but it’s our decision I just don’t know what to do for the best. The place he is in at the moment is pure hell 😢
If your kids are being really, really good about social distancing. AND if you're able to "shield" your dad, especially with things like explaining why the kids need to keep their distance. And if you have looked ahead and are confident you're not going to get more than you bargained for permanently (e.g. if it then becomes extremely difficult either to get him to his own home, or to find residential care for him)...
On the whole, yes, I think he'd be safer and happier with you. But what about the rest of the family?
It isn't something I'd recommend, but where I am we certainly are seeing elders discharged to their homes alone and we certainly are providing support - I'm about to go out on my round!
You say your father is in a care home for assessment, then say it's only an assessment unit and he's being discharged because he doesn't need nursing care - so I'm a little confused, whose care is he under? Is this an NHS rehab unit - didn't know there still were any! - or a community hospital or what?
I still think it's a bad idea to bring him into your home unless:
you already have substantial experience of caring for him day to day and know that you can cope
"loads of room" includes enough physical rooms for him to live separately from the rest of you if need be
your home is well located for access to health and food delivery services
Any children in the house?
Do you have LPA for him?
If the care home he's in were that dreadful, would he be doing so well there after several weeks?
The trouble with bringing him to your home - do you mean to live with you? - would be that if anyone in the household got ill you would have to deal with isolating that person, PLUS "shielding" your vulnerable father. It would be a heck of a challenge.