What assistance is available at home for my Mum who has stage 4 cancer and my Dad who is 81 and struggling to care for her

Hi Colin

So sorry to hear that your parents are struggling to cope at the moment. The best place for your mum to start would be to contact the Palliative care team or your Specialist macmillan nurse (I am assuming that your mum will have one). If all else fails your mum can contact her GP and they will help. 

Due to your mums diagnosis any support offered should be able to be put in place quickly. I'm no expert but your mum should be able to have help at home from carers for any personal care and support up to four visits a day. Carers can help with things like washing and dressing, meals and medication. A social worker can also advise on other support such as cleaning and shopping. District nurses can also be involved if your mum has any district nursing needs. Local hospices have day services to be able to offer support too such as Day care activities and also support such as counselling. 

Age UK (google for their number) also have a range of services that they can offer (you would need to investigate this further to see if they would be supportive in this circumstance but I do know that they can help with shopping too). 

I'm sure there is more support that can be offered and that there will be better people on this forum to advise but at least this gives you a starting point. 

Hi  and welcome to the Online Community, although I am sorry to see you finding us.

As we are facing the same issues with my 90 year old mum (not cancer) and being 5 hours round trip away I can understand where you are at. We arranged through her GP for a home assessment by the Council Geriatric Medicine/Support (In Scotland you can also self refer to the Council) and she was assessed for various improvements to her house but she does not need drop in care at this point in time.

We do have these forums where you can connect with others supporting family and friends through their cancer journey: Carers Forum  and Friends and Family Forum

Follow the link above and join the group by hitting the ‘Join the Group’ tab just under the main group name and it is worth indicating how you want to receive email notifications when someone answers your posts.

Go to the 'Start a Discussion' tab just under the main group name and set up your own Discussion and introduce yourself to the group - you could just copy an paste what you have in this first post. 

You may find our various Macmillan Support Line Services to be helpful - call them on 0808 808 00 00 This free service covers Emotional Support, Practical Information. Clinical Information, Financial Support and Work Guidance mostly open 8.00 to 8.00 but check the link.

We do have lots of support groups that are Cancer specific so you can connect with folks going through treatments the same as your mum.

We also have our ‘Ask an Expert’. section where you can post questions to our mostly Volunteer Experts but please allow 2 working days to get a reply.

Our Online Information and Support Section  is a good place to find information covering cancer diagnosis, treatments and pages covering most types of cancers.

When you feel up to it try putting some information in your profile. This really helps others when answering. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. Just click on YOUR username, select 'Edit Profile'. Put as much or as little in your profile and you can amend it at any time - you can see members profiles by hitting our forum names.

All the very best.