Last man standing

Hello everyone, first my apologies for any offence caused by my click bait title. I fully recognise it’s also last woman standing too.

Any advice welcome. I became about a year ago the attorney for my 90 year old uncle in the UK. The truth be said my uncle is relatively distant from us having fallen out and gone his own way decades ago. Besides my dad (lives near me) there is no other family local to him and unfortunately those around the UK he alienated years ago. As he is self funded he’s supposed to look after himself. In the last 12 months I came to understand that he has a pretty low quality of life and we added extra care, etc… Of course he does not want to pay for anything and generally does not open any post. We should not laugh but he often calls the police for things…most recently because two lunches had been delivered not one :roll_eyes:. Joking apart I’ve progressively become the only coordinator which I find impossible to do from here and with my own constraints. E.g. find and organise a plumber and coordinate with a carer to open the door?

I’m at a loss as to what to do. This week the carer’s asked if I could organise to defrost the freezer. I know they’re good people and are living the system.

How do you manage your relatives of that age in UK?

We had an aunt who became like that and, unfortunately, it became necessary for her to go into full time care.
If I did shopping for her I had to make sure that things were in the right bags as some shops were trying to poison her.
I really don’t know how you can manage day to day care if you are not living close by and then it can be extraordinarily difficult.
Do you know who is his GP? A telephone call might be a good ides.

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In the end we paid for private care.

With my father we had a husband and wife couple who did three hours a week or cleaning, odd jobs etc.

Happily my mother was fine and independent until close the end of her life and for a long time it was possible to manage with things like local helping hands organisations, then paying for an hour a day and slowly increasing to full time 24/7 care.

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Thanks for your messages. Much appreciated. I guess we’re heading in the direction of more care and then a care home. The challenge as I see it is piecing all together. There are two care firms, meals on wheels, laundry service, gardening, etc. He wants to live at home but he’s doesn’t take care of himself then ending up in hospital. Anyway we do our best.

Not at all easy… many of us have been in similar situations and feel for you.

best of luck

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