Respite Care guidelines for non-ASD conditions

[Emum]

A friend has two children aged 4 and 9 with a medical condition (not learning difficulties or ASD). Dad also has some serious health issues and is in and out of hospital. She gets support from carers from an agency paid for by SS. From time to time one or other of the two children needs to go into hospital for a few days and up until now mum has had the carer either stay at the hospital with the child who is in hospital, or stay at home with the other one, while she keeps child in hospital company. Recently however SS have said that she cannot do this as the carer is not allowed to go into hospital with the child, and must not be left alone in the home with the other child in case there is a medical emergency. Friend has said she will sign a consent form to say in those circumstances carer can call an ambulance, but SS will not budge from their policy. They have said that in future she must leave the children, even the 4 year old, alone in hospital for however long it takes. They have also said that she must never leave either child in the house with only the carer, even just to drop the other one off at school which is a 5 min walk away.

 

All this seems mad to me, and not much good as respite care if you have to always be there at the same time as the carer. I wondered if anyone with more knowledge of the wider SEN field had come across anything similar before, or could offer any advice about how to negotiate with SS to achieve a more sensible outcome. The children's condition is chronic not acute, and not life-threatening.

[aro]

That's odd , our Barnado's run respite allows carer to go out with child or parents to go out leaving child with carer, guess it must be that agencys policy?

 

A x

[Karen A]

I can help with the hospital bit.I would be surprised if ss agreed to a respite carer going in to hospital because I would think they would say the NHS could take over the care.A friend that has almost 24 hr care from an agency for complex needs has it stopped when in hospital.The agency do provide carers to stay at home when mum is away at the weekend but friend is an adult so don't know if that makes a difference.I think the other thing that could make a difference is if both the children have medical problems-the cares would need to be trained and judged as qualified to deal with any emergency that could occur as a result of their condition.If the carers are not then that may be the problem.If even an individual carer did not feel able to deal with the particular problem they could refuse to care for child without a responsible person there.[i was a community nurse pre kids]Karen

[Emum]

Thanks KarenA that is really helpful. I get some respite care for my ASD child, and like aro the carer will take her out for the afternoon without me so I was surprised that my friend could not leave her child alone with the carer, but I suspect that you are right it is the training that is the sticking point - even though my friend herself has had no formal training and would just call an ambulance if anything went wrong.

 

Still its not much respite if you have to stay in the house at all times...