Dear Social worker

Dear Social worker,

You could have ruined it all. Last year when Nan was in hospital you had all these ideas. You tried to push for my Nan to be taken away from her home and put in a care home. “Shes unsafe” “She walks around with her trousers round her ankles” “She will fall”. Shes never fallen, and now passed I can say she never fell. You made it impossible for us, we had just lost my uncle, my Nan was struggling, couldn’t understand where the man upstairs had gone and you couldn’t see the bigger picture, you couldn’t look outside the box you had in your head.

Nan was assessed for her capabilities and you told us she would be a danger in her own home. We knew this was not the case, this was the Nan who still raided the cupboards or changed her own clothes. This was the Nan that had walked outside her home and into the neighbours house looking for the man upstairs. We then find out Nan had a chest infection, you had assessed her with a chest infection and somehow still felt this was a true reflection of her life.

It took weeks to convince you to let her home. Well you just have to consider you kept telling us. I wasn’t going to consider anything, my Nan was coming home. OK, she can have two week live in care to see how she get on, but remember this might lead to a care home you told us. If she proved to be safe then she could go to 4 times a day care. Well I knew she would be going to 4 times a day care no matter how much you were so sure she had to be in a care home.

She came home and within minutes of meeting her both the live in carer and the colleague sat in Nans living room couldn’t understand why you had wrote the stuff you had wrote in your report. This was not the Nan they were seeing????! They were expecting to come across a woman with zero capabilities who would wander and fall. This was not the case. The carer used to come down in the morning to find that Nan had already on some occasions (Attempted to) washed and changed her clothes, found some breakfast (probably cake) and pottered about “cleaning” though probably made a bit of a mess!

Oh social worker, now she has gone from this world never a danger in her own home, never wandered out the house again, never fallen, I can only think about how if we hadn’t fought you the ending could have been so much different. Especially in the world as it is today. I very much doubt I would have been holding her hand or stroking her face as she slowly fell asleep for that last time. She smiled at me before the paramedics arrived you know, I think she knew what was happening and she was ok.

But social worker, what I really like to think that smile was. I like to think it was a Its alright Becks, we won. And we did.

My Nan got to pass away at home with all her things and me holding her hand.

You were wrong.

But I always knew that anyway.

Becka