War hero, 90, died of stress after care home evicted him
AN ELDERLY Alzheimer’s sufferer who was kicked out of his care home after being wrongly accused of owing £17,000 in fees died from the stress of the event, his family said yesterday.
James Bryant’s relatives were threatened with legal action and then given just four weeks to find somewhere else for him to live after they refused to pay the huge bill.
They complained to an ombudsman, which found in their favour and asked the nursing home and the local council to apologise. But the apology has come too late for Mr Bryant, who died, aged 90, eight months after he was kicked out of the home.
Daughter Janet Marshall believed the stress of the move caused his condition to deteriorate. ‘We were told moving him would have a detrimental effect, and it did,’ she said.
‘My dad was poorly and could not communicate but my sister said she thought he had an idea of what was going on. People of that generation do not like to owe money and he would have been very upset at the prospect of owing anyone a penny.’
The dispute centred on who was responsible for paying for Mr Bryant’s care after the death of his wife and highlights the complex rules over care funding.
Mr Bryant, who was a military wireless operator at Bletchley Park in the Second World War, moved into Roebuck Nursing Home in Stevenage in April 2011. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and his wife Evelyn, who he married in 1953, and daughters Janet and Jill could not provide the care he needed.
He was eligible for funding from Hertfordshire council, which agreed a reduced rate of £550 a week with Roebuck. The standard rate was £880. But problems at the home began following the death of his wife in December 2013. It meant the family home could be sold and pushed Mr Bryant’s assets above the threshold for help with care costs.
It took 17 months for the daughters to sell the house due to legal complications his care fees switched to £880.
However, Roebuck owner Nilufa Somani argued that he should have paid that rate from the day his wife died and received backing from Hertfordshire council.
The authority later admitted it had been wrong but the care home continued to demand payment, culminating in a bill for £16,958 in January last year. On February 18 Mr Bryant was given four weeks to leave as a result of the outstanding debt and he was taken out in an ambulance last March.
Mrs Marshall said: ‘By this stage it had become personal – they just wanted to get the money. And because the council had told them the wrong information, they thought they were right and evicted my dad. It was very upsetting.’
After the family’s complaints, the Local Government Ombudsman concluded that the council advice was wrong and the nursing home was wrong to chase the payment. It said the home should not have kept £5,000 the family had overpaid.
Last November, nursing home manager Moira Edmondson sent an email blaming mistakes on the council and ‘apologising for any distress’.
Mrs Marshall remains angry over the treatment of her father and dismissed the apology from Roebuck as insincere. She described both the Care Quality Commission, which she said did little to help, and the Local Government Ombudsman as ‘toothless organisations’.
‘Britain desperately needs an organisation with powers to support and defend families in such situations,’ she said.
Mrs Somani owns the care home with husband Hassanali, through Finecare Homes, which had operating profits of £750,000 last year. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Hertfordshire council apologised over its role and said it was instigating a ‘financial checklist’ to improve the understanding of policies.
No way to treat a hero How the mail reported the eviction on may 23, 2016