Janet Dean

I provide family support for my brother Brian who lives alone with dementia in sheltered housing. My experience of Yorkshire Ambulance Service over the summer and early autumn of 2020. 

After the first lockdown in March 2020, I didn’t see my brother, I only spoke to him on the phone to make sure he was okay. At Easter he reported feeling unwell and was attended by paramedics who were called by the sheltered housing manager. He was checked over and found to be fine.

As lockdown eased in May, I noticed he wasn’t looking too well – he appeared to have lost weight and didn’t seem very happy. His hair and beard were unkempt but with hairdressers closed, weren’t we all?

In late June he again reported feeling unwell, not being able to see clearly, and the sheltered housing manager called an ambulance for him. I met him at the hospital and was warned by the ambulance crew that I might not be able to go into A&E with him. I did have to negotiate quite hard to sit with him, and he went in to see the doctor alone. He was admitted for tests, and I went home.

This started a long period of illness, during which my brother was experiencing delirium. In late July, I took him to hospital, was able to stay with him in A&E until he went on to the ward. He stayed in hospital for two weeks. He went home with a care package but over the course of August he deteriorated and one evening he refused to enter his flat, believing that other people had moved in. A neighbour’s carer called the out-of-hours care line and they called an ambulance. They rang to tell me this, and shortly afterwards the ambulance service called me to say that Brian couldn’t be found.

I called the police and they found him relatively quickly making his way to our house at about 9.30pm. Because he wasn’t in immediate danger, we waited for the ambulance service to come to our house, which took a couple of hours. The paramedics dealt with Brian really well, but they advised against taking him to hospital as they felt he wouldn’t be admitted and that would be more disruptive for all of us.

For the next couple of weeks Brian stayed with us and was supported with medication by the mental health team. However, before his anti-psychotics were effective, his behaviour became very difficult and I asked for help from the care home and out-of-hours mental health team. They felt Brian’s delirium might be caused by organic rather than psychological factors, and wanted a GP to assess him. The GP did so over the phone and called an ambulance to have him admitted to A&E. When the paramedics arrived, which didn’t take very long, they were impressive in their handling of Brian, calm and reassuring to him and to me. They felt that he met the criteria for admission and because they were concerned about his behaviour. They advised me not to go with him and reassured me that they would liaise with the A&E staff. I felt very supported by them. Brian stayed in hospital for a further two weeks, then spent six weeks in a care home.

Since then, with medication and mental health support he has made an excellent recovery and is living independently again. Since October he has had an acute angle closure glaucoma which led to the loss of sight in his right eye, and a cataract operation on his left eye, but he is managing all his medication, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry for himself as well as shopping and going to the bank.

The support of Yorkshire Ambulance Service was a key part in helping Brian to get well again. Thank you.