You got the call. One of your parents fell, hit their head, and is in hospital, confused and not quite themselves. The other, three hours away from you, is managing at home but is not well either, and will not hear a word about it. You are holding down a job, a family, a life, and you are being asked to somehow arrange care for two people at once from a distance, in a hurry, when you have never done any of this before.

That is an enormous amount to land on one person. The fact that you are looking up where to start is already you doing something, even if it does not feel like it.

The hospital has obligations before your parent goes home

This is the thing most families do not know until it is almost too late. The NHS has a legal duty to assess your parent's needs before discharging them, particularly after a fall and head injury. This is called a discharge needs assessment, and it should happen before he leaves the ward. Under NHS guidance on leaving hospital, no patient should be discharged without a plan that considers whether they can safely manage at home.

The first call to make is to the ward's discharge coordinator or the ward sister. Ask plainly: "Has a discharge needs assessment been requested for my parent? Has adult social services been contacted?" You are allowed to ask this. You are allowed to push for it. The hospital should be looping in the local authority social care team before they are sent home, not leaving it to you to arrange from scratch afterwards.

If they are discharged before a proper plan is in place, and you feel the process was unsafe, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman handles complaints about adult social care. That is your escalation route if things go wrong. But first, try the direct approach with the ward.

What a needs assessment actually is, and how to request one for the other parent too

A needs assessment is a formal look at what a person can and cannot manage safely day to day. It is carried out by the local council's adult social services department. It is free. It does not commit you to any particular type of care. It just establishes what help is needed.

The parent in hospital should get one as part of their discharge process. The other parent can have one separately, requested independently. You do not need a GP referral. You can contact the local council where they live and ask for an adult social care referral directly. According to gov.uk, anyone who appears to need care and support has the right to a needs assessment, regardless of their finances or how mild the need appears.

A parent being resistant is hard, and it is very common. They may be frightened. They may feel that accepting help means admitting something they are not ready to admit. Age UK, on their free advice line at 0800 678 1602, can talk you through how to approach a parent who is pushing back on help. They have heard this situation hundreds of times and they are good at it.

You can also request a carer's assessment for yourself. Carers UK, on 0808 808 7777, can walk you through what that looks like and what support it might unlock for you. You are a carer even if you live three hours away. The definition is broader than most people think.

What to think about when care does come home

Once the assessments are done and a care package is being arranged, the details matter enormously, especially for two people whose needs are different and who may resist help from a stranger.

What actually works, in most families' experience, is one consistent person rather than a rotating team of people your parents have never met. Someone who sees the parent in hospital every morning builds up a picture of their baseline. If they seem more confused than yesterday, that carer notices. With a different face every visit, that continuity disappears and the small early signals get missed.

For the other parent, especially with emerging memory issues and strong feelings about independence, who the carer is matters as much as what they do. The family being able to meet that person before any arrangement starts, and having a genuine say in who is chosen, makes a material difference to whether it actually works.

The vetting question also matters. Whoever enters your parents' home should have a current DBS check and valid insurance. These are not optional extras. They are the basic floor. You have every right to ask to see evidence of both.

Tonight, or tomorrow morning

The single most useful call to make first is to the discharge coordinator on the ward where your parent is being treated. Ask whether a needs assessment has been requested and whether adult social services has been contacted. Write down the name of whoever you speak to. That one call unlocks the rest of the process, because it happens while they are still in hospital and while the system is still engaged.

After that, call Age UK on 0800 678 1602. They can advise on the situation with the other parent, on what to do when a parent refuses help, and on what the local council should be offering. They have no commercial interest in what you decide. They are there to help you think it through.

If you would rather not piece this together alone, this is exactly the situation Hibant exists for. We are a London introductory care agency. When families come to us after a hospital discharge, they meet the carer in person before any arrangement begins, they choose the person themselves, and every carer we introduce has been DBS-checked and insurance-verified by us independently. We work with families paying privately and with those using direct payments from a personal budget. If you want to talk through what good care at home looks like for two people with different and changing needs, you can email hello@hibantcare.com or visit hibantcare.com.

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