When her mum needed to move into a care home, a WorkNest employee struggled to find clear answers. Through Podplan, she found practical guidance and someone to turn to when she felt overwhelmed.
Outcome
✔ Understood her options for finding a care home closer to her
✔ Asked questions she hadn’t thought to raise during care home visits
✔ Applied for Attendance Allowance using Podplan’s guidance
✔ Continued reading PodPost most weeks and began thinking about her own family’s future needs
The Challenge
For years, she had helped her mum stay in her own home, fitting that support around work. It had its challenges, but she had managed it successfully on her own.
Then her mum developed health problems and, after a hospital stay, needed to move into a care home. Suddenly, she was dealing with unfamiliar services and decisions about where her mum would live and how her care would be arranged and funded.
She was used to finding solutions. This time, getting clear answers proved much harder.
"I was searching online for information but much of it was confusing or didn’t match my scenario."
She wanted to understand her options and what rights she and her mum had. Instead, she felt she was having to work it all out alone, at a time when there was already so much to worry about.
Somewhere to turn
WorkNest had already given her access to Podplan. She had taken a quick look when it first became available, but with everything happening around her mum, she hadn’t thought to return to it.
When she did, she realised how much useful information was there.
At a particularly low point, being able to ask a question mattered. The PodSupport team responded quickly, helping her understand the options for finding a care home closer to her and drawing her attention to care-funding information she hadn’t been given.
She also used Podplan’s moving into a care home checklist when looking at homes. It helped her ask questions she might otherwise have missed.
"The moving into a care home checklist was really helpful and prompted questions I hadn’t thought of asking the care homes I looked at. Things that you think would obviously be the case often aren’t!"
Practical help she could use
Looking further through Podplan, she discovered that Attendance Allowance could be relevant to her mum. She had assumed it was means tested and hadn’t thought to apply.
She followed the guidance and submitted an application. When she shared her story, she was waiting for a decision from the DWP.
She now reads PodPost most weeks, picking up details that are useful well beyond the immediate care decisions. One email suggested keeping a copy of the Attendance Allowance application, so she could refer back to it if asked what had changed in future. It was something she says would never have occurred to her.
An email about digital blindspots also got her thinking about her own arrangements. Making important digital information available to her daughter is now on her to-do list.
A workplace benefit that made sense
She hadn’t expected her employer to offer help with any of this.
"I never would have expected this type of support from workplace."
But having used it, she could see why it belonged alongside benefits such as pensions, medical insurance and support for parents of children. Supporting an ageing parent can bring unfamiliar responsibilities, difficult decisions and a great deal of worry. Having somewhere to find guidance made sense to her.
Her advice to colleagues is to explore Podplan before they think they need it. She wishes she had done the same.
"I just wish that I had looked at it in more detail a few months earlier and could have saved myself a lot of upset and sleepless nights."
For WorkNest, providing access meant that help was already there when she thought to look for it. She could ask a question, prepare for care home visits and follow guidance to make an application she hadn’t previously considered.
And she has kept using it, for her mum and for her own future.