Ageing Parent: The Practical Guides
Sourced to the law, not to opinion
Plain-English guides for UK families, for the point where looking after a parent stops being something goodwill can carry.
Every factual claim in these books is sourced, in a note, to the law or the guidance behind it. If what you are told does not match what is in the book, the source is what settles it.
By Thomas James
Start with the one that matches your week
No book depends on another. Most people arrive at one of these moments and need that one.
Get the books
All out now on Amazon. Each book stands on its own. The workbook is for writing down what you're told, as you're told it.
They're Sending Her Home On Friday
Book 1 · eBook
Read it tonight, on a phone, in a hospital car park. The fastest way to have it in front of you.
Get the eBookThey're Sending Her Home On Friday
Book 1 · Paperback
The one to hand to a sibling, or to keep with the hospital paperwork and write in.
Get the paperbackThe Rota
Book 2 · eBook
Sharing the care of an ageing parent. What you are entitled to at work, and how to build a rota that holds.
Get the eBookThe Rota
Book 2 · Paperback
With the worked rotas, the four nations section and a QR code in each chapter that opens its sources.
Get the paperbackThe Discharge File
Companion workbook · Paperback
Every name, date and promise in one place. Works on its own if that's all you need.
Get the workbookWho Pays?
Book 3 · eBook
What the NHS pays, what the council pays, and what your parent pays. The three payers, mapped, before you sign or move anything.
Get the eBookWho Pays?
Book 3 · Paperback
With the deprivation of assets test in full, a nations appendix for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and a QR code in each chapter that opens its sources.
Get the paperbackNot sure yet? The six guides in the resources section are free, and cover the things families most often get stuck on.
Written for one person, in one state
You are somewhere between 45 and 70. You are in a hospital corridor, a car park or awake at 2am. You have not slept properly in three days. You are frightened, and you are angry, and underneath the anger you feel guilty about being angry.
You are not stupid. You may run a department at work. But stress collapses reading ability, and right now you can hold about two ideas at once. These books are written in plain English on purpose. Not because you need it simplified, but because everyone reads better under pressure when it is.
Book 1
They're Sending Her Home On Friday
For the week before a discharge. Every factual claim is sourced, in a note, to the law or guidance behind it. If something you're told on the ward doesn't match what's in the book, the source is what settles it.
8 questions, answered
Not a general explainer. A specific sequence of things to ask, in the order you'll need them, with what to do once you have the answer.
Scripts you can say out loud
Every script is short, never adversarial and ends with a specific ask, usually something in writing. Read every one before it went in the book, to check it holds up under real pressure.
Sourced to primary law
The Care Act 2014, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, NHS and NICE guidance. Not blog posts, not forum comments, not a competing book's opinion.
Honest about what won't go well
No promise that everything works out. Hope through capability and clarity, not through prediction, because a book that promises a good outcome fails you exactly when you need it most.
Book 2
The Rota
For what happens after. Nobody sat down and decided you would be the one. It was settled in a corridor, by whoever spoke first, on a day when everyone was frightened. Then it held, quietly, on one person.
Three rights you already hold
A week of carer's leave a year. The right to ask for a permanent change to how you work. An assessment by your council of what caring is doing to you. None of them depends on your family agreeing that you need them.
A method, not a pep talk
Write down every task. Put real limits around that list, taken from what you are entitled to. Go back to both on purpose, before a crisis does it for you. Goodwill is not a structure.
The reader most books skip
A chapter for the person who genuinely has nobody else, because that reader exists and is disproportionately likely to be the one reading this at 2am.
Written to the law as it stands
An employer can refuse a flexible working request on 8 grounds only, and must talk to you before saying no. A further test, expected in 2027, is flagged so you know to check the current position.
Book 3
Who Pays?
For the moment someone says "financial assessment", "contribution" or "self-funding". Most families believe your parent must spend nearly everything before anyone helps. That's broadly true. But the threshold is higher, and the process slower, than most people expect, and that gap is where the expensive mistakes happen.
The three payers, mapped
The NHS, the council or your parent. Which one applies depends on need, not on how much your parent has, and most families are a mix of all three, a mix that's allowed to change.
Scripts for every stage
The exact words to say to a social worker, a care home or a council, so a conversation that could go against your parent goes on the record instead.
Sourced to primary law
The Care Act 2014, the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations and current government guidance. Not blog posts, not forum comments, not care agency marketing.
Four nations, each sourced separately
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each run a genuinely different system, not a rebadged version of England's. Covered in full, not a single line at the end of a chapter.
The companion workbook to Book 1
The Discharge File
A written note settles an argument. A memory doesn't. This is a place to keep every name, every promise and every date in one place. The people directory, the conversation log, the medicines record, the rota and more.
Most families manage with a notebook, and that works fine. This is the notebook, organised for you, so you're not designing a system for it at 11pm.
Resources
Every link referenced in the books lives here, kept current. Law and guidance change, and benefit rates and thresholds change every April. A website can be corrected the day something moves. A printed page can't.
- Mental capacity, what it means and what it doesn't Live
- Carer's assessment, how to ask for one Live
- Reablement and intermediate care, explained Live
- NHS Continuing Healthcare checklist Live
- Current capital limits for care costs Live
- Who to contact, helplines and escalation routes Live
Sources for The Rota. Book 2 is sourced chapter by chapter at ageingparent.co.uk/sources. Every claim in it traces to the law or the guidance behind it, with a live link to each one. In the paperback, each chapter carries a QR code that opens its own page.
Sources for Who Pays?. Book 3 is sourced chapter by chapter too, at ageingparent.co.uk/sources/who-pays. The same numbered notes printed at the end of each chapter, with a live link to each one, and a QR code per chapter in the paperback.
Every link here matches what's in the books, and is reviewed each April alongside the annual rate changes.
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