Dear LPG,

I have a story for you. I am one of those retired children who has a mum in her mid-90s, but she still gets out and about. I live with my mother, and she has a friend now in her 80s whom we have watched go totally blind over the past 15 years. She began that journey positively, even though she lived alone.

As her sight started to fade, she spent a couple of days a week at a day centre and, with the help of her children, my mum, and a few other friends, she was able to organise herself and get out and about quite a lot. Her sight deteriorated quickly, and within six months she could see very little. While she became quite adept at using her white cane, she never built up the confidence to leave the house relying only on it. She was never a dog person, so despite her friends’ suggestions, a guide dog was not an option. At first, she tried to stay independent by doing some housework and cooking, but a mishap quickly put her off trying that again.

This left her with a lot of time to listen to the news, and much of what caught her attention centred on theft and abuse involving visiting carers. Things were fine for a while, but as her friends grew older and her children became busier, she really did not want anyone in her home because of her worries about losing her possessions, both valuable and sentimental.

As it did for many people, lockdown never really ended for her. She goes nowhere now except to the bank when she absolutely needs to. As her friends have aged, it has become harder for them to spend time with her, but one of her sons moved back in, and things improved.

That was until quite late one Saturday afternoon recently, when my mum went to visit and found her son looking very ill, having only got out of bed to open the front door. My mum organised a meal for her before asking a few questions, but her son insisted he was fine, just tired. He had been telling his mother the same, but it was late in the day and he had not prepared her midday meal. The blind lady was not alarmed, but of course she could not see him. My mum could, and what she saw gave her no confidence in his reassurances.

My mother came home and told me this story repeatedly over the next half hour, which is when I decided it might be a good idea to take a look myself. So we went for a second visit, and I had to agree. There is always a dilemma: should I raise the alarm and risk upsetting everyone, possibly wasting the NHS’s time, or should I worry about what might happen if her son was truly ill? She would have been able to do very little about it once we left. So, with my mum worried about what I might decide, and the lady and her son insisting they would be fine, I phoned 111. We were going to have to leave at some point, and I felt that walking away from that situation would not sit well with my conscience—or with their health.

There were a lot of questions and eventually a visit, although the medics decided he did not need further treatment. I suppose what I did meant waiting around for quite a while, but at least by the time we left, both my mum’s and his mum’s minds were at rest.

We checked the next day, and all was well. But it occurred to me how hard it must be when age or disability unconsciously shifts the positions of the decision-makers in a household. Her son is diabetic and has other health problems that my mum and I know about, but his mother did not have the advantage of seeing how ill he looked. She spends her life trying her best not to “bother” anyone (including the NHS), but sometimes we do need to bother them—especially when we are not sure.

When you are torn between bothering the NHS, upsetting those involved, and being responsible for raising a possible false alarm, you also have to think about what might go even more wrong if you don’t raise it. I am no medical expert, but the NHS assured me that I did the right thing.

DK, Forest Hill.

While there is no answer to cover every circumstance, LPG found some advisory information about when to call 111 that it might be good to read at a time before any emergency occurs … 

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