Now a dying cancer patient is stripped of his care funding
Last week we revealed how dementia sufferers are being suddenly told they no longer qualify for help with nursing bills...
RELATIVES of a terminally ill cancer patient are being forced to sell the family home because health officials have withdrawn funding towards the man’s care bills. In a disturbing case, the family of 85-year-old Derek Brickley, who is dying of prostate cancer, have been told that his health needs are no longer severe enough to qualify for NHS-funded care.
Derek, a former volunteer ambulance driver for his local NHS, also suffers from dementia, is unable to move or talk lucidly, and is fed only liquids. He requires constant pain relief and round-the-clock nursing.
His devastated family have had to drain his bank account and put his home on the market to meet the £900-a-week cost of his care, following the decision by NHS Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford Clinical Commissioning Group in December.
Money Mail last week exposed how sufferers of degenerative and terminal illnesses have had vital NHS funding for care withdrawn after they were judged no longer sick enough to qualify.
Those who lose so- called continuing healthcare funding face being turfed out of nursing homes because they cannot cover the costs any more.
Since then, we have received a stream of heart-rending emails from families across the country whose loved ones have been stripped of these vital payouts.
Last night, MPs called for an investigation into our findings.
Former Liberal Democrat care minister Norman Lamb called these decisions ‘inhumane’ and questioned whether they were legal.
‘The system is broken and these failures need to be investigated,’ he says.
Baroness Ros Altmann, a Tory peer and care campaigner, says: ‘This is a third-world system of social care and the Government needs to look at every aspect of it.’
Labour MP Liz Kendall also called for an inquiry into decisions to remove funding, adding: ‘It does not seem as though anyone is taking responsibility for ensuring continuing healthcare provides the support the most vulnerable people in our society need.’
CoNTINuING
healthcare is a payment of around £1,000 a week which is awarded to people with complex, severe or unpredictable health needs to pay for their care.
But the funding can be stripped away if a reassessment deems their needs to be ‘social’ rather than ‘healthcare’-related.
The sick person will then have to cover care costs themselves if their assets are above £23,250 — usually by selling their home. They may also face a highly disruptive move into a cheaper nursing home.
Derek Brickley, a former plasterer, was awarded a payment worth £900 a week in August 2017, when he was admitted to a nursing home in his home town of Eastbourne for palliative care in the final stages of his illness.
But just three months later, his daughter, Shawn Bold, 58, was told by social workers that her father would have to undergo a reassessment to decide whether he was still eligible.
The reassessment examined Derek’s health on 12 points, including eating, mobility and continence.
Even though her father could no longer move and was rarely lucid and on 24-hour pain relief, Shawn was told he did not qualify for NHS care funding.
Healthcare workers said that Derek would be responsible for funding his own care, as his needs were social, rather than health-based. The ruling forced his family to drain Derek’s life savings to pay for treatment.
This money is now dwindling and Derek’s family home is now on the market to pay the fees.
Shawn says she is bewildered as to how the decision was made.
She says that her father — who was recognised by the same local NHS for his decade-long service as a volunteer ambulance driver — would certainly feel betrayed.
In their last weeks together she has been forced to battle with social workers and watch health officials probe his finances.
Shawn, a former school secretary, says: ‘I think Dad would feel badly let down. He is from the generation that had very little, and he and Mum worked extremely hard to leave a house to pass on to us. I don’t give a fig about the money — it’s the principle. Dealing with this cruel ruling as Dad is dying is causing huge heartache. ‘He’s not going to get any better so how can they claim he is not ill enough to receive care? Dad paid into the system all his life but when he needs help in his dying days it is not there.’ Fears are growing that cash- strapped NHS chiefs are taking an increasingly hardline approach to those with degenerative and terminal illnesses such as dementia and cancer. Figures from Freedom of Information requests to the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which allocate continuing healthcare funding locally, show that between 2013 and 2016 there was a 300 pc increase in the number of people losing the payouts following a reassessment.
Charities say that the reasoning behind these devastating decisions is often unclear.
Vascular dementia sufferer Ernest Smith, from Hull, had been receiving NHS continuing healthcare funding for five years when it was removed suddenly last June.
In 2012, as the degenerative condition made his behaviour unpredictable, the Army veteran was moved into a care home and awarded the payout.
Initially, half of Ernest’s £1,800-amonth fees were covered by continuing healthcare.
Since 2012, Ernest, who saw active service in Malaya in the Fifties, has suffered a dramatic decline in his health.
He can no longer feed himself, walk or recognise his family. He also becomes agitated and aggressive when touched.
Late last year, bosses at Hull City Health Care Partnership said Ernest’s needs no longer qualified for funding.
The 87-year-old’s family are now paying the nursing fees from the proceeds of the sale of his home.
Ernest’s daughter, Kathy Bowmaster, 66, says: ‘Dad’s health is 300 pc worse from when he went to the home.
‘I am so worried about what happens when the money runs out. If Dad has to be moved I don’t think he’ll cope.’
A spokesman for Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford CCG said it could not comment on Derek’s case for data protection reasons.
A Hull City Health Care Partnership spokesman also said i t cannot comment on individual cases, adding: ‘Continuing healthcare funding is about need complexity, intensity and unpredictability among other factors — it is not about diagnosis.’