Wrongly charged Care fees

[vern]

My mother has Dementia and parkinsons and in late 2013, after a year of me caring for her, she was admitted to a nursing home. i approached adult services to ask if there was any help with fees they said there is a deferred payment scheme but her capitol would have to be below the 23,000 threshold before that could be put in place. Mum had bonds and savings which i told them about. A year has passed and her savings diminished enough she has reached the threshold and we have applied for deferred payment again and its going through now. I have since been informed by the bond company that the bonds should have been disregarded in the means test because they have a life insurance element to them. As a consequence we've paid over £40k in care fees we didn't have to. Am i entitled to a refund ? how do i go about getting it ? will i need legal representation? your help is most appreciated in this stressful time.

 

[Ladybird23]

Knowing what we know now, I would suggest you get some legal advice, from CAB or Solicitor if that suits better for you. £40K is a massive amount, and I hope there is some chance of you getting it back.

God luck.

 

[jenniferpa]

Hi welcome to Talking Point.

I have a couple of questions for you I'm afraid so we can make sense of this.
Is that £40K the total amount of fees you paid? And since you mention a deferred payment scheme, I assume there is also a property?

You see the thing is that while the bonds quite possibly shouldn't have been included in the assessment, if they hadn't been included, your benefit would have been to get the deferred payment scheme a year earlier, not that you wouldn't still have had to pay the fees. Even if you are using the term "deferred payment scheme" to mean help from the LA paying the fees (as they do when you are below the upper capital limit) your mother would still have been expected to contribute the majority of her pension(s) plus £1 per £250 per week in tariff income on her savings.

 

[asherman]

Hi Vern

The first thing that should have happened before a penny was paid in care fees was an assessment for NHS Continuing Healthcare funding.

This is NHS funding and it covers 100% of care fees for people to meet certain criteria in their health and care needs. It's important to ask for this to be assessed right away. Let me know if you need more info. The local authority and others should have mentioned it right at the start, but sadly this very often doesn't happen and leads people to start paying care fees they may not need to pay.

Regarding bonds, yes any bond with an element of cover (however small) should be disregarded in any means testing.

Hope that helps.