Discharge from hospital -- house adaptations & carer's assessment

My mum had a stroke towards the end of last year. She survived the acute phase and is now in a neurological hospital. She’s significantly disabled physically but mentally mostly fine, I would say.

My dad is living alone while she’s in hospital. She’s undergoing physical rehab and making some progress, difficult to work out how much though. She’s in a wheelchair and that doesn’t look likely to change, she has the use of one arm. She’s due to be discharged in about a month’s time.

The problem is that my parents’ house is not adapted for my mum’s disabilities at all. There’s stairs everywhere and massive gaps. My dad has been told that as part of the “discharge plan” a carer’s assessment will be provided. But it’s looking almost certain that they’ll have to make big modifications to the house to make it livable for my mum on a day-to-day basis. But no social worker is in touch with my dad, and it’s not clear who he should talk to. Is it a local GP? The council? So far he’s only in touch with doctors and nurses within the hospital, but keeps being informed that he’ll “be contacted” when the time is right. But if it could take months to do the physical modifications to the house, surely that won’t be enough time?

I’m worried that she’ll be discharged from hospital and only then we’ll get the “carer’s assessment”. Meaning my dad will have to be managing not only 24/7 care for my mum, but also getting builders and trades people in to do the modifications, which could in themselves take a huge amount of time. Has anyone got any experience with how this process normally works?

Hi. Local health boards vary, but in my case I was brought on a home visit to see what adaptions were needed to the home. The visit was arranged by occupational therapy at the hospital. The alterations were made before I came home by Age UK free of charge. Or the first three weeks I had to sleep downstairs. I was also given a commode,a Walker and sticks on loan. I would phone your local Age UK and/ the Stroke Association helpline.

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Also interested in this - my Mum has suddenly been told she might be discharged home soon but has not been involved in any of the discussions about when, it’s all been second hand information from nurses etc. There will also need to be home modifications and a care plan in place before she is home, but so far the communication from the hospital has been an absolute shambles. Thanks for the info @John_Jeff_Maynard - I shall ask if an OT and my Mum will be involved in the assessment when they do eventually call me!

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I was discharged in Feb 2021, I had a home visit at the Christmas before being discharged the O/T and physio came with me to see what adaptions I needed, I was also assigned a social worker who sent out the o/t for a house assessment, the assisted in getting low threshold doors and ramps for my house as I am wheelchair-bound, there is a disabilities facilities grant the government gives to councils you can use for adaptions, however, if you sell the property within a time period you pay that back when the property is sold. I converted the downstairs shower room to a wet room which has been wonderful, if your parents had an occupation there is a lot of trusts with benevolent funds which also can assist, hoping this helps

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