Contact

One person reads this inbox, in gaps, usually late. So rather than invite you to get in touch and let you find out afterwards that I could not help, here is what happens to each kind of message before you spend your evening writing it.

[email protected]

Things I will genuinely answer

• A correction. Something here is wrong, out of date, or true in one country and written as though it were true everywhere. Quote the page and the sentence. These go to the front of the queue and I would rather have them than not.
• A gap. You looked for something on this site, it was not here, and you can tell me what you were actually searching for at the time. This is how most pages here got written.
• A question about how something works in general. What a carer’s assessment is for, what the difference is between two schemes, what a term in a discharge letter means. I can point you at the page and at the source it came from.
• Your own experience, if you want to send it. I read all of these. I do not publish anything anyone sends me without asking first, and I would not publish it with names in.
• Permission and reuse. A carers’ group, a hospital ward or a library wanting to print a page and hand it out. The answer is almost always yes and it is free.

Things I will read but cannot act on

• “Should my mother be taking this?” No page here gives a dose and neither will I. The pharmacy will take that call today, and they can see the whole list of what she is already on.
• “Is this normal?” about a specific person. I have not met them, I cannot see them, and a guess from me would be worth nothing and could cost something. Their own clinician can answer it in five minutes.
• “Which agency or care home should we use?” This site names none, deliberately, and I will not name one privately either. What I can do is send you the page on how to judge one, which is the part that actually transfers.
• Anything that needs a decision made about someone’s money, care package or capacity. I am a family carer, not an adviser, an advocate or a lawyer. Nobody here will contact a doctor, hospital, council, insurer, benefits office or employer on your behalf, and nothing sent to this address is an application for anything.
• Requests to add a link, a listing or a sponsored piece. There is no advertising on this site and no paid placement of any kind. These are deleted unread once I see what they are.

Things that need a phone call today, not an email

If any of these is why you are writing, please close this page and ring somebody instead. The Disclaimer sets out who to ring for each one.

• They are more confused than they were yesterday.
• They have had a fall.
• They have stopped eating or drinking.
• They are in pain and you do not know why.
• Their breathing or their chest has changed, one side has gone weak, their speech has changed, or there is bleeding that will not stop. That is the emergency number, now.
• Your own thoughts are frightening you. That is your own doctor or an urgent line where you live, today.

This inbox is not monitored and there is nobody on the other end of it at three in the morning.

Before you write: please leave them out of it

Do not send me the name of the person you look after, their date of birth, their address, their diagnosis in identifying detail, photographs of them, their discharge letter, their care plan, their assessment, their benefit letters or their bank details. They did not agree to any of it being sent to a stranger, and I do not want it. Write “my mother” or “my husband” and describe the situation, which is all I need and all I can use anyway. If you send documents I will delete them and tell you I have.

One more thing that catches people out: I reply to the address the message came from. A lot of carers write from a household account that the person they care for, or another relative, can also open. So replies from me stay general and never repeat clinical or financial detail back to you. If that is a problem, write from an address only you can read, and say so.

Post

The address below is a shared workspace that handles post. It is not an office you can visit and there is nobody there who can help you.

The Care We Need c/o WeWork 400 Capitol Mall Sacramento, CA 95814 United States