Continuing Health Care - Preparing to fight PCT's decision

Long Story so I'll try to keep it short.

My MIL (age 84) was hospitalised for 7 weeks after a fall in July 2007. The family were advised to look for a care home as in their medical opinion my MIL could not return to her sheltered accommodation due to a high risk of falls and the council's care team being unable to provide the frequency and timing of visits required to meet my MIL's revised medication regime.

The family were not made aware that a continuing health care checklist had been performed on my MIL prior to discharge in September and in fact all of us were completely unaware of the CHC system. The checklist concluded that a full CHC assessment was not necessary in my MIL's case. Had we been made aware of this decision as we should have been we would have challenged the decision at the time.

My MIL had at the time of discharge:
Diabetes (type 2)
Parkinsons Disease (meds beginning to 'wear off' requiring supplementary meds)
Acid reflux (previous hospitalisation due to near fatal gastric bleeds in 2005)
Cognition problems (dislocated in time and location)
Severe short term memory loss
Paranoia (the medical staff were trying to poison her)
Severe Mobility problems
Circulatory problems due to beginnings of heart failure
Vascular Dementia

This combination of problems requires 9 different meds to be given at 7 different times in 14 doses, timing is critical. She has been unable for some years to manage her meds and would not be able to list her medical conditions if asked.

Shortly after discharge in September we 'caught up' with the possibility of CHC and after some weeks persuaded the CHC team to assess my MIL in December. At this time we were assured that the assessment would be carried out as though it was done at the time of her discharge and we subitted a letter in support of our application. Predictably the CHC application was declined.
We have since discovered.
-The assessment team and lead nurse who prepared the case for consideration by CHC panel did not take our supporting letter into account.
-The assessment was prepared in relation to MIL's condition at the time of the assessment and no regard to her condition at the time of discharge was made.
-There was no social services input into the assessment even though the new assessment framework says there should be.
-The contemporanous notes of the assessment teams are routinely destroyed when the assessment is 'typed-up' by the lead nurse (who did not take part in the assessment) so there is no way of seeing what the assessors actually wrote during the assessment.
-The assessment prepared by the lead nurse was 'altered' by the CHC panel.

Since this application was declined we have been asking for the official appeals procedure but this either does not exist in my MIL's area or the CHC team is unwilling to provide it. We have persuaded them to do a retrospective assessment for the period from discharge to the date of the declined assessment and to submit the declined assessment for 'peer review'. This may take some time as we have been told only retrospective reviews that relate to deceased claimants are being dealt with at the moment and that some of these date back up to 8 years!

It seems that anyone who is in a care home is automatically assumed not to have a significant medical need and that anyone who is self-funding (my MIL has modest savings from the sale of her property) goes to the bottom of the priority list.

We have also approached the PCT and SHA to inform them we wish to appeal but cannot find out how to, and we have also tried Age Concern and Altzeimers Society.

Thanks for reading this far.

We would be very grateful if anyone can give us some pointers on:
-How to progress from here.
-Specialist legal practises who can help.
-Where we can obtain an independant medical assessment in support of any appeal we mount.