Well, we have made the headlines tonight. It seems like there are 11 cases of the new South African Covid variant in the UK and our little bit of Maidstone has at least one of them! Tomorrow I understand we will receive a letter telling us to stay at home and self test for Covid, Volunteers including the police and fire service personnel will be calling to collect to our specimens and then they will be sent to labs for testing. The Govt plan is to act swiftly and determine if there is any spread so the scientists can map it. I fully support this method and will be happy to have the test. Maybe this is something that could have been done at the outset of the pandemic. Interestingly, I am probably one of the first few people to have had both the Pfizer jab plus the booster and am now at a time when I should have the maximum 95% effectiveness from the vaccination. If I show positive, which I hope I don’t, it will be an interesting result as far as efficacy of the jab is concerned. We shall see.
This morning Sue and I were invited by the NHS CCG to join an online meeting to discuss Mum’s care and possibility of Continuing Health Care (CHC) funding. Also there was a KCC Social Services representative and a nurse from Barty. A bad start for the meeting as nobody told me Mum was there as well. When she saw me she was clearly upset and so was I. They saw her distress and she was moved away. The meeting covered a dozen aspects in accordance with objective criteria we had to discuss and agree a level of risk. Sue and I had completed a statement of needs beforehand and that criteria we had to comment and score on. It took an hour and a half to go through in detail, but all quite irrelevant as I had already been told beforehand that Mum had very little chance of getting funding. We will be notified very soon but as one of the two decision makers was the one who had told me there was little or no chance it was a bit of a pointless exercise. The good thing however, is that we have now gone through the process and should Mum deteriorate they can assess again.
In April we start the difficult process where we inform social services that Mum’s money runs out in 3 months hence. Then it is a battle to get fees decreased and KCC funding increased. Whatever they come up with will still mean that our family must meet the difference. It won’t be easy.