I am astounded by the hypocrisy of a county councillor who received £45,000 in a year for his expenses to write me a letter saying that the council can 'no longer afford to be as generous' for those who are under s117. My mum was under section 2 and 3 in hospital and has lost mental capacity. Who is going to fill in the means testing forms? Me? A social worker? What if there is no POA or deputy ship in place? And as someone with extremely high nursing needs she is involuntarily in a nursing home. As nice as her nursing home is, 'hotel' it ain't. How can any human think it is correct to charge the weakest in society for something which he claims on expenses and is paid for by the taxpayer? I am so angry.
I totally agree with your sentiments on the councillors expenses.
However I have to disagree on your overall point of accommodation charges and means testing.
My Mom, along with thousands of others, is in a NH. She has no capacity due to VasD and many other ailments and a Financial Assessment was painlessly carried out on her with my help. She has to pay all her state pension, private pension and benefits to help pay for her care. I see nothing wrong with using state benefits in this way and agreed with the paying "hotel" costs that the CA2014 was supposed to bring in this year but has now been deferred.
The cost that you quote of £230/week is in most circumstances in line with basis state pension and AA combined.
I do have objections to the use of private pensions and the very low thresholds for capital that is included.
I cannot see a reason that those on S117 or CHC and who are in receipt of state pension/benefits should not contribute that to the cost but am honestly open to hear why it should not.
For those that do not yet receive state pension then the threshold for contributions should be way higher than now.
I would also like to see "hotel" costs introduced for Hospital admissions but how to work out how much or after how long it should start is well beyond my skill set and unfortunately has to be left to those who can claim extravagant expenses.