Well.................
2 days after the FiL passed away, I got a call from my brother. My mum (98) who still lives at home, had a fall on the 4th. To give some background, my brother is her main carer, and she has an NHS carer come around once a day plus meals on wheels. Only a week before, I had seen my Mum as I was driving down to see my kids and spoke to my brother. He's 70, has a wife, daughter and granddaughter with learning needs, and it looks like it is really stressing him. I spoke to him separately and said he really needs more help, but he basically stonewalled me and said he's always done it this way, and isn't going to change now. I got in contact with social services and spoke to them about my concerns, and I was in this process when I got the call from my brother. Thankfully she had an emergency button which she pushed and help came around. They called my brother, who lives about a mile away, who came around. She had to wait for an ambulance, which then took her to the local hospital. She was then in A&E for a number of hours in a queue in a corridor before she could be seen and then was taken to a ward. Once on the ward, I rang to see how she was. The nurse on the ward said that she had been diagnosed with Early Onset Dementia, which came as a surprise to me. He also said she seemed to be shouting a lot (she is deaf so talks loudly) and was talking a lot (that's my Mum's default position!). Surprised at this, I called my brother, who also said he knew nothing about this. The following day I spoke to the main nurse on the ward who advised that it seemed the information I got the previous night was a bit overstated. On her arrival at the hospital, they had done a CT Scan because she had a fall, and an examination of the brain showed indications of Early Onset, but they can't officially confirm until they do the full dementia test. However, it didn't surprise me as we had seen the way my FiL got as he started on the dementia path. She is now struggling to walk and is having to go through physio before she can be returned home. We then got a call from the hospital yesterday to say that my Mum had contracted Covid. She is not showing symptoms as yet, but it is obviously a concern.
When she does return home she will have to have her number of carer visits upped to 4 a day so that is a battle I am having with Care and Social Services at the moment.
Still, we have experience of doing this with the FiL.