Well, Charles had unfortunately had a period
of mental confusion which meant that he had
not been looking after himself very well and
social services had moved him into a home
while they worked out what needed to happen
at that stage there was a very real possibility
that Charles might never return home again
because his mental capacity was in question
about whether he could understand his choices
and whether he could understand the need to
look after himself. A Community advocate was
asked to go in and try and understand how
Charles felt about being in a home. I suppose
the thing was it was I think it was the restriction
more than anything because you couldn't go
out I never went near the front door because
it was locked so you were in and it give me
a horrible feeling like er, that did bother
me. Luckily the weather was nice so it was
nice to be outside quite a lot of the days,
but it had a very high fence all around was
a very high fence and it, if there was, there
was like bolt, yeah locks on nobody would
go out unless they went out of the front door.
In there everything was quite nice, the food
was nice the staff they were lovely they were
all really helpful and nice but it sort of
it was like I felt what happens I'd like to
get out but nobody to talk to about anything
like that. I think I was, I suppose I felt
kind of lost you know. I wanted to get out
of there. I didn't feel I fitted in there,
no I didn't. It was somewhere where you didn't
feel you were going anywhere. You know I mean
there were all these people and all the ones
in they very nice I mean a lot of them but
they were all very elderly, women, men mostly
women I think was in there. They, I don't
think they had any hope of ever going anywhere
else. When the advocate went to see Charles,
the first thing Charles said was 'he was a
little bit confused' what he was actually
confused about was not why he was there, he
understood that something had happened to
him and that he hadn't felt well, what was
confusing him was why did he have to stay
there because he clearly felt that he should
be back home and he couldn't understand why
this couldn't happen. Well it was nice to
see you because you came in, I think it was
a nice sunny day, they were all sunny days
there and you come into the garden introduced
yourself and we just went, we did go to the
room, we just sat and talked about how things
were and how I was, I don't remember it in
detail except it was a different face you
know someone new. We could discuss different
things and you weren't a member of staff I
think that was nice. Well the way to help
Charles was to get the whole decisions looked
at again by social services so the advocate
contacted Charles' social worker to ask them
to re-do the capacity test but this time using
a POhWER mental capacity advocate to support
the process. When they did this the outcome
was that Charles was found to have capacity
to express where he wanted to live and what
support he wanted to receive. The social worker
was able to move Charles back into his home
within a matter of days where he was able
to live an independent life once again. Well
there's no one to tell me what to do and erm
I'm the one who makes the decisions. I mean
I've had a lot of help I mean I've had these
nurses come four times a day not for long
just to bring me pills have a chat, one in
the morning, one about midday, one early evening
and one later. I wasn't very confident at
first I mean I was lost but like I said yesterday
was the first day I'd been really, I'd felt
relaxed enough to do things like we went for
coffee, I went and ordered the coffee all
this type of thing, normal things you know
which was good. Well now I'm at home I can
do what I like and I do feel happier yeah.
