The Chair of a Government Committee says the elderly are being unfairly forced to pay for care
29 I 09 I 10
Vulnerable elderly people
are being unfairly forced to pay for health care, the new chairman
of the House of Commons health committee says.
In a BBC interview, Stephen Dorrell said
patients with conditions such as dementia used to get free care in
NHS geriatric hospitals.
But the BBC report that the number of places
has fallen by nearly 80% in the UK over the past 20 years - despite
the ageing population.
Mr Dorrell, who was
health secretary towards the end of John Major's time as prime
minister, said: "People are being charged for care that they would
have got free from the NHS 20 or 30 years ago.”
The BBC report that figures from analysts
Laing and Buisson show that the number of geriatric beds fell from
more than 80,000 in 1988 to 16,300 last year.
During the same period nursing home places
more than doubled from 78,300 to 179,400. On top of that there are
now nearly 300,000 residential care places, although these are less
likely to have patients with severe medical conditions who should
be the responsibility of the NHS.
NHS funding is available to people whose
primary need is health under a system called continuing care.
Continuing healthcare is where the NHS is responsible for, and
fully funds care. It mainly affects very ill patients, often
elderly, in nursing homes. It can also apply if a person is in
hospital long term or needs nursing care at home.
Lisa Morgan, Senior Associate with the
Specialist Nursing Care Team at Hugh James states: “I welcome Mr
Dorrell’s comments. It is disappointing that families are still
being wrongly charged for health care and in many cases, they are
forced to sell their family home to pay. The majority of our
clients suffer with dementia and twenty years ago would have been
cared for in long stay hospital beds free of charge.”
Lisa Morgan adds: “There is a clear disparity
across the country, despite national guidance, Primary Care Trusts
still apply their own judgement to determine whether someone is
eligible.”
Lisa goes on to say: “I am increasingly being
approached by families whose relative’s continuing care package has
been removed despite being in the later stages of dementia because
they no longer ticked the right box. It appears that the health
authorities are stating that individuals are less likely to qualify
for continuing care, even though they in fact need more intensive
health care to maintain a good quality of life. This is
unacceptable. The NHS is not applying a common sense approach”.
Read the full BBC article
Key Facts:
- If you are eligible for NHS Continuing
Healthcare, you do not make any contribution towards the long term
care fees. The NHS pays the whole cost and it applies if a person
is in hospital, care home or in their own home.
- If a person is not assessed as eligible for
NHS Continuing Health care and has capital over £22,000 in Wales,
they have to pay for all the care fees.
- The average weekly cost for care, per person,
is £600. As an example, if 500 people have been incorrectly
paying for care for one year, then they are owed approximately £15m
in total.
- Hugh James currently represents over 2000
people claiming they have been wrongly charged nursing care fees in
England and Wales and have recovered over £10 million in wrongly
paid nursing home fees to date.
For further information contact:
Lisa Morgan
Senior Associate
Hugh James on 029 2022 4871 or email lisa.morgan@hughjames.com