Relatives who fought frustrating battle for cash furious at ‘massive conflict of interest’
RELATIVES who have spent years attempting to secure state funding for care for their loved ones have said the growth of NHS officials working as private consultants is “outrageous” and a “massive conflict of interest”.
Rear Admiral Philip Mathias spent four years fighting for continuing healthcare (CHC) funding for his elderly mother, Joy, before finally obtaining it just before she died.
Joy, who was diagnosed with severe dementia, entered a nursing home in 2014 after “becoming violent”.
However, it was two years later that Rear-adml Mathias first learnt about CHC – by which time his frail father had spent about £100,000 on care.
Rear-adml Mathias, who served in the Royal Navy for 36 years, was unaware that the nursing home had actually conducted a CHC checklist when his mother first arrived. She died in September – just two hours after the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) agreed to retrospectively fund her care home costs and all future fees – amounting to more than £200,000.
Rear-adml Mathias said the entire process was “exhausting, gruelling, frustrating, demanding” and claimed NHS officials working as private consultants for families was a “massive conflict of interest”.
Grace Ioppolo, 63, an English professor, spent the past two years fighting to win CHC funding for her husband, Peter Beal, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2013.
An NHS nurse who visited their home in Nov 2017 recommended Dr Beal – now 75 – for CHC, but when the process was restarted in Feb 2018, he was rejected.
Prof Ioppolo said that the process was made “deliberately complex”.
“I feel sorry for an 85-year-old woman who is trying to get this for her husband, how is she possibly going to get this,” she asked.
Prof Ioppolo added that she thought it was “outrageous” that NHS officials were working as private consultants for families trying to secure the grants.