If you don’t, but your relative still has mental capacity to give consent to you being their representative, this should also be reasonably straightforward. If you have power of attorney for your relative, this should be straightforward. Make sure the hospital knows you want to attend all assessments. Many people are discharged without this assessment having been done – effectively forcing them to pay for care before it has been properly established that they need to.Ģ. you have what’s called a Primary Health Need. This is NHS funding and it covers 100% of the costs of ongoing full-time care if you need it primarily for health reasons, i.e. Your relative should be assessed for NHS Continuing Healthcare funding before they’re discharged.

If you have an elderly relative in hospital and you’re being pressured into finding a care home for them – or the discharge team are threatening to find one for you – follow these tips:ġ.

If a hospital decides someone no longer has ‘acute’ health needs, it will want to hand the person over to the local authority as quickly as possible – and will often put pressure on the local authority (and on you as the next of kin) to get the person discharged. Many families report that their older relatives are often forced out of hospital and into long term care – or back home – before proper health needs and funding assessments have been carried out and before suitable care provision has been put in place.

Grandfather escape hospital