Care home Fees - Time running out to make claims

[honeybee13]

Has this been mentioned before?

 

September deadline issued by Gov for claiming care home fees

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-2134603/Act-claim-unfair-care-home-fees-Department-Health-sets-new-deadline.html

Edited August 4, 2012 by MARTIN3030

[rebel11]

Not that I'm aware of, sounds interesting.

[cerberusalert]

Thousands of families across England who argue that their elderly relatives have been wrongly charged care home fees risk missing out following a Department of Health announcement.

 

Families have been given a last chance to claim after the Department of Health announced a close down of claims for wrongly paid care home fees for the period 1 April 2004 to 31 March 2011 in England. Any new claim needs to be registered before the 30 September 2012.

 

A landmark 1999 ruling established that the NHS was responsible for funding care in a home where the primary reason for that care was a health need. However, exactly what constitutes such a need has proved controversial and hard to judge. Many families have been wrongly forced to sell their home to pay for care.

 

The Courts and the Health Service Ombudsman have been critical of NHS bodies using over-restrictive criteria that do not meet legal requirement, wrongly denying people the funding they are entitled to.

 

The scheme was established following the Health Ombudsman report which advised Primary Care Trusts to review cases. If a person has been contributing towards their care fees from 1 April 2004, they may be entitled to a reimbursement of their fees. This is the case even if the person who was cared for has since died.

 

Under the "NHS continuing care" scheme, care can be arranged and funded by the NHS to meet physical or mental health needs. If you are eligible, you don't need to contribute towards the fees. If you aren't eligible, and have capital of more than £23,250 you have to pay all the fees.

Edited August 4, 2012 by MARTIN3030

[citizenB]

Something else for the Claim companies to get their teeth into ?

[cerberusalert]

Here's the letter from the NHS Chief Executive; http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_133053.pdf

[citizenB]

Should I give some space to this in the Newsletter ?

[cerberusalert]

I would think so, there's only two months left for the deadline to claim in the vast majority of cases.

[AndyOrch]

They have been running this on local radio advertising for about 3 months in the North West

[rebel11]

Doesn't the limitation period start, when the individual finds out? They would like to have a deadline, but I doubt it counts.

[AndyOrch]

I was rather dubious rebel11when I heard the ad having not seen anything in the press.

Edited August 1, 2012 by citizenB

[rebel11]

andy I was referring to this bit, 'Any new claim needs to be registered before the 30 September 2012.' what if you find out after the deadline?I bet they (government) haven't been shouting from the roof tops.

 

I was rather dubious rebel11 when I heard the ad having not seen anything in the press.

Edited August 1, 2012 by citizenB

[cerberusalert]

Apparently it's not an easy feat getting the money back given this post from another website;

 

Good luck with that: the criteria for grant of Continuing Care is very strict. When I recently jumped through the hoops with the surviving Aged Parent (an 82-year old male with Parkinson's, vascular dementia and a dicky ticker), his needs were assessed as 'Borderline' and, consequently, he did not qualify.

 

I was left with the distinct impression that, other than being a blind eye on a bed, an individual with the 'standard' ailments associated with old age has little hope of qualifying for CC.

 

To assess a deceased individual's care needs sounds something of a futile exercise.

 

...........still, it's only £2k per month and he's worth it.

[cerberusalert]

This was also posted on that forum by someone in healthcare.

 

This is another in a series of reviews that have followed the new guidance for Continuing Care which came out in 2007. Many of the cases will be reviewed post mortem and against criteria that weren't in place when the original assessments took place.

 

I was heavily involved in commissioning continuing care when I worked for the NHS. We were a relatively generous PCT comparitively but some most certainly weren't (to the point of ignoring the guidance and case law allegedly) and will have a large number of cases to review.

 

It is isn't helped by the frustrating and wholly arbitrary definitions as to what is social care (ie paid for by social services) and what is nursing care (ie paid for by the NHS and specific nursing care that can't be provided by normal care workers) as these come out of two seperate pots of money, meaning most trusts and SS depts used to play ping pong with many of these cases as to who should pay.

http://www.arrse.co.uk/charities-welfare/185635-nhs-continuing-healthcare-deadline-now-set.html