You're saying this nearly a year later?? Perhaps you should refresh your memory and read the rest of that post, and the bit where I said this: "I know that not all relatives do this, it's a small number". I stand by what I said, and have seen at first hand the awful and uncaring attitudes of SOME people towards their elderly and vulnerable relatives.

Top-up fees are not charged by or payable to the PCT or Social Services. They are what some (not all) privately run homes charge, in excess of the local authority agreed rate. They are not to be paid out of the person's own funds, but by a third party.

I don't know if you've got all the information you need yet, but Age Concern do some really good factsheets about financial affairs, and they are written in plain English. They cover all the issues that affect older people and can be posted to you or you can download them from here.

I don't claim to know ALL about it. I have to operate within that framework in my job, so I have to know how to present my part of the assessment, and know how it fits in. I have been angered by what appear to be unfair decisions myself on more than one occasion. You, however, seem to see yourself as the fount of all knowledge, based on the fact that your wife (whom I presume is a solicitor?) helps people to claim fees back from the NHS. As I said before, don't patronise me.

Firstly, please don't patronise me; there is no need for that. I know what I'm talking about, as I work with elderly people who need care of one kind or another. That's my job, so please don't presume that I'm ignorant just because I don't agree with what you say. There are two sides to every story, and the law of this country is that if people have above a certain amount of assets, then they pay for their care, except the nursing element, which is paid by the PCT. In some cases, where the need for nursing care is wholly due to a HEALTH need, necessitating nursing intervention on a daily basis; then that care is FULLY funded by the PCT under Continuing Care. In the case of someone who has been detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act, then they qualify for fully funded care by the local authority for their mental health needs. This is called Section 117 Aftercare. What about all the people who also paid their taxes and rates, but never earned enough to buy a house or have savings? What should we do with them when they need looking after? Bring back the workhouse? If people like say, Alan Sugar, or Robbie Williams or the Queen needed to be in a nursing home in the future, would you think they should be there for nothing?

I'm sorry JonChris, but if you really think that all Social Services departments are in the business of ripping off elderly people and stealing all their money, then you are very deluded. Do you think there aren't also, on the other side of the coin, many greedy relatives who are desperately trying to protect their "inheritance", when in most cases they have a good income and houses of their own. Yes it would be wonderful if everyone got free nursing and residential care, but the country can't afford it. Where is the money supposed to come from? For example, would you go to a soup kitchen for free food when you can perfectly well afford to go and buy some at the shops? No? Didn't think so. Then why can't people see that the structure of contributions for care are there to protect the poorest people, the ones who have nothing, and not through their own fault. Not everyone owns their own house, or had a well paid career with a decent pension at the end of it, not everyone has been able to build up substantial savings. Nobody is asking the better off patients to pay the fees for poorer people, but to pay their own fees; and no matter how much money they have, they can STILL claim Attendance Allowance to put towards the fees, and as I said before, the NURSING element of the care is funded by the PCT, regardless of how much they have. I have worked with older people for several years now, and have seen some appalling stunts pulled by relatives, including forcing people with advanced dementia to sign legal and financial documents, when they clearly have no capacity to do so; I've seen relatives salting away large amounts of their parents' savings to avoid paying for care. I know that not all relatives do this, it's a small number; see the connection? For every one person who is dissatisfied, there are lots more who have no complaint. It sickens me when social workers are slated continually by the papers and other ill-informed people, (who have often got their "information" from disgruntled relatives secondhand). Sorry if this offends anyone, but I care deeply for the people I work with and it makes me very angry to have social workers constantly pilloried. I for one, do everything I can to protect the vulnerable people I deal with, but sadly it's only the bad examples that get into the news. We all know that good social work doesn't sell papers. Please remember also, that the Nursing element of the fees is the responsibility of the PCT, not Social Services.

Just a small point here, this does NOT apply to residential care, which is not funded by the NHS. Also, not every person who needs to be in a nursing care home is eligible for fully funded care. In most cases, the nursing element of the care is funded by the NHS, but the board and lodging aspect is means tested to see what level of funding (if any) is needed from Social Services. If someone is self-funding, i.e. if they have savings of over £20,500 and/or a house to sell, then they will fund their own placement, minus the nursing element, until their funds drop to £20,00. At that point, Social Services will fund that part of the placement which is not covered by pension and any other benefits. Social Services are generally seen as the big bad wolf in situations where someone cannot cope at home any longer and need permanent care, but they don't "force" someone to sell their house and then grab all the money, as a lot of people think. I would think that the number of people who are able to make a successful claim for reimbursement of all nursing home fees from the NHS will not be as big as the above website would have you believe. For more information about Continuing Care funding, you may want to have a look around this site. There's a lot of waffle and jargon, but if you dig enough, there is quite a bit in plain English!