An advocate traditionally helps someone represent their own interests so they can:
- Ensure their rights are secured and upheld
- Obtain the services they need
- Make their voice heard
We have now carefully developed this role and created the innovative and exciting TimeFinders Advocacy Service. This encompasses all the different types of support that are so often required in later life. It is specifically designed to help clients meet the varied and changing needs and challenges they will face as they age.
Your TimeFinders Advocate will help you to make important decisions about your future and determine what you would like to happen if you become unwell or lose capacity, for example through dementia. They will work closely with your solicitor, financial adviser and Property & Financial Affairs Attorney. They are there whenever you need them, to ensure that your decisions are implemented and your wishes respected in the future.
A TimeFinders Advocate is almost like a surrogate family member. This relationship is especially important for our clients who may not have any family of their own to help them or whose family, whether through distance or other commitments, are not able to provide the dedicated support required.
Whatever your state of health or capacity level, your Personal Advocate will liaise with your medical and care professionals to represent your wishes. They will respond to your changing circumstances and, when the time comes, continue to provide all Advocacy and Continuing Support Services up to and including end of life care.
The TimeFinders’ Advocacy Service is particularly valuable for people who: –
- Are ageing alone or have family living far away
- Do not want to burden family or friends with the responsibilities of Health & Welfare Attorneyship (*click here or see below)
- Want support to make decisions before they might lose capacity
- Increasingly need support which is beyond the remit of their financial and legal advisers
- Are managing a change in health
- Have been recently bereaved
- Have family who are busy and preoccupied with their own lives
- Need patience and understanding and someone to work at their own pace
- Have lost confidence or just feel that they need an independent advocate on their side.
The key benefits of the TimeFinders Advocacy Service:
- Advice and guidance in helping you plan for your future
- Support to ensure that your decisions are implemented and your wishes respected
- Protection of your best interests at all times
- First point of contact in an emergency
- Liaison with your health and welfare professionals
- Liaison with your professional advisers and attorneys
- Professional oversight of your care
- Six-monthly reviews
“Understanding your rights and options in relation to healthcare and medical treatment is confusing at the best of times. The TimeFinders Advocacy Service provides essential and invaluable support to ensure people who are most at need are heard and their wishes are respected. We often refer clients and their family members to TimeFinders for their unique, cost-effective and, above all, friendly assistance.”
Stewart Stretton-Hill, solicitor with Irwin Mitchell (Later Life Specialist).
https://www.irwinmitchell.com/personal/planning-for-later-life
How the TimeFinders Advocacy Service works
Free Consultation
We offer a free initial consultation so you can meet us and find out more. You will then receive a detailed written Proposal about the Service and what it costs for you to consider. We are happy, with your authority, to send a copy of our Proposal to your solicitor and/or financial adviser. When you feel you are ready, you can instruct us to proceed.
Stage One – Information Gathering
We will arrange five meetings with you to gather all the information we need to be your Advocate. This valuable time lets us get to know you better and to find out what is really important to you – your beliefs and feelings, your likes and dislikes, and your wishes regarding future care. You will then receive your personal Advocacy Handbook and a card to keep with you giving details of how to contact your Advocate in case of a sudden illness or accident.
Stage Two – First Point of Contact in an Emergency**
If, at any time, you become unwell or have an accident, your TimeFinders’ Advocacy Service contact card will give you or whoever is in charge – friends, neighbours, GP or paramedics – details of how to contact your Advocate so that we can ensure that the decisions we know you have made about your care or treatment can be respected and followed.
Stage Three – Six-monthly reviews
We will arrange two regular meetings every year when we will discuss any changes to your situation and review and update the information in the Advocacy Handbook. The regular six-monthly meeting can be brought forward if you wish or if there has been a significant change in your circumstances.
Stage Four – Future Advocacy and Continuing Support Services
Our Advocacy Service is here to support you in a crisis and to ensure that your health & welfare decisions are respected and implemented throughout your life. If, at any time, your situation changes and you feel you require further regular assistance, our Continuing Support Services can provide whatever support you need.
**Please note that this is not yet a 24/7 service but we undertake to respond as quickly as possible during the working day or the following working day after notification out of office hours.
Advocacy in Action – some case histories
Planned Advocacy Support
Mr. S.* appointed TimeFinders to be his Advocate after the death of his wife. They had been Health & Welfare Attorney for each other. They had no children and had not appointed replacement H&W Attorneys as they did not want ask any of their Godchildren or nieces or nephews to take on the responsibility… (Click here for more)
Emergency Advocacy Support
TimeFinders had been providing a Continuing Support and Advocacy Service to Miss T.* for some years as her dementia progressed and had helped her move into the residential care home of her choice. We received a call to say that Miss T. was in hospital. She had broken her pelvis for which the only treatment was pain relief and rest…(Click here for more)
Health and Welfare Attorney
*Appointing someone as your Health and Welfare Attorney (LPA) is often the best way to protect your future well-being, and if you have lost capacity and a Health and Welfare LPA is in place, your TimeFinders Personal Advocate will work closely with them. However, we are aware that many of our clients are ageing alone or are unwilling to ask distant family or friends to shoulder the considerable burden that this role brings. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to have a Health and Welfare LPA, the TimeFinders Advocacy Service can take on these responsibilities and give you the reassurance you need that your welfare will be protected and your wishes respected. An important advantage of the Service is that, unlike a Health & Welfare LPA, it can be there to support you before you lose capacity.
