Take care to check

HELPING HAND: Could you be eligible for funding?

WITH an ageing UK population comes a growing demand for care and the all important question of who should pay for it. Around half of Britain’s 440,000 care home residents are self-funding, and with the cost of care and nursing home fees averaging between £500 and £700 per week the cost can rapidly escalate into thousands of pounds and quickly drain people’s life savings.

However, there is a common misconception that people in care homes automatically have to pay for their own care.

In fact, anyone who relies on long-term care through illness should be individually assessed for their medical and health needs because they may be eligible for full NHS funding.

If the primary reason a person is in a care home is because of their health and nursing needs then the NHS is responsible for the full cost of the care home fees regardless of the person’s ability to pay.

There is lack of awareness and understanding about how the assessment process works. In some cases people are incorrectly assessed or not assessed at all, with the result that many end up paying the fees themselves.

If on assessment they are deemed eligible for NHS care funding, they could be due a refund of care fees already paid.

Help in recovering wrongly paid care home fees is at hand from the experts at law firm Hugh James, whose nursing care team has to date successfully recovered over £25million for families in England and Wales.

They were successful in the case of 87-year-old Mrs Evangeline McConnell, who suffered a stroke in October 2002 and was admitted to the Royal Albert Edward Hospital in Wigan.

From there she was transferred to Leigh Infirmary in Lancashire for six months’ rehabilitation.

However, her family was informed that she could not return home as she required 24-hour nursing care.

MRS McConnell was then admitted to the Arncliffe Court Nursing Home in Halewood, Liverpool, in April 2003 and later to St Bartholomew’s Court Nursing Home in Huyton, Merseyside, where she sadly died last November.

Following a seven-year fight, involving Hugh James, the NHS admitted that its decision on care fees had been wrong and the family of Mrs McConnell was reimbursed £117,000 in wrongly paid care home fees.

Lisa Morgan, a partner from Hugh James, said: “There are many reasons why NHS continuing healthcare decisions may be wrong.

“We can determine whether the NHS should fund future care and whether a claim can be made for a refund of fees that have already been paid. If you or a relative have been paying nursing home fees since 2004 and feel that you may be eligible for reimbursement you should get in touch.”

LAST CHANCE TO CLAIM

The Department of Health has announced that applications for the recovery of care home fees must be submitted by September 30,

2012.

02920 391 108/ hughjames.com/nursingcare