Mother in law challenges!

tluscombe

My mother in law is in her 80's and has lived in Italy for the last 20+ years. Now she's been told she needs heart surgery (valve replacement) and can't live on her own any more - so she is comiing to live with us (whoopee).

We need to modify the house (create downstairs bathroom & bedroom) and we're under a bit of time pressure (only have a couple of weeks)

My questions are

(a) will she be entitled to NHS care - especially surgery? If it is relevant she has dual nationality & lived here for 20+ years before returning to Italy.

(b) What help can we get with the conversion of the house - financial or otherwise.

(c) Will whe be able to claim any benefits - she has state & and a widows employment pension

Many thanks for your help.

Tim

welshmoneylover

tluscombe wrote: »

My mother in law is in her 80's and has lived in Italy for the last 20+ years. Now she's been told she needs heart surgery (valve replacement) and can't live on her own any more - so she is comiing to live with us (whoopee).

We need to modify the house (create downstairs bathroom & bedroom) and we're under a bit of time pressure (only have a couple of weeks)

My questions are

(a) will she be entitled to NHS care - especially surgery? If it is relevant she has dual nationality & lived here for 20+ years before returning to Italy.

(b) What help can we get with the conversion of the house - financial or otherwise.

(c) Will whe be able to claim any benefits - she has state & and a widows employment pension

Many thanks for your help.

Tim

Does she have any savings to meet the cost of her needs herself?
Also, what about the cost of surgery, who will be expected to fund this? The NHS or the Italian NHS?

Sam____2

Perhaps she can sell the house she lives in in Italy to pay for the work needed on your home?

Mojisola

There's no way the kind of alterations you want could be sorted out in a couple of weeks. Any builder worth his salt is going to have a work planned well ahead.

If she is entitled to help towards the alterations by the council, work on at least a year for the paperwork to be done.

Do you have a downstairs room that you can fit out as a bedroom for her, rather than building anything. A commode would then provide a temporary solution for a toilet. The kitchen sink or a bowl of water could be used for washing. Far from ideal but possible solutions.

RAS

You ned to check whether you need building consent to alter the room usage and water and drainage.

chesky369

If she has lived out of the UK for so long, she might fail the 'habitual residence' test. In which case she would have to pay for NHS costs and wouldn't be eligible for any benefits. You should check this out - the CAB should be able to help you further.

7roland8

No knowledge - but have heard of all the NHS 'tourists' who come here form abroad for their treatment - usually get billed but they never pay! Is it ever followed up to make sure people pay.

Lots of foreigners come here to have babies etc - how is this different?

LondonDiva

She is not entitled to the operation under the NHS as she is not habitually resident here and would be only coming here for the purposes of (extremely expensive!) treatment.

You are entitled to the NHS while you live here, not because you paid in 20 years ago. She's been paying to the Italian system or an equivalent insurance scheme I assume, why not claim through that?

Why can't she have the operation in Italy and then come over here to convalese? I'm sure that she will have savings etc and if you sell or rent out her home in Italy, you could pay for adaptations. The council would also need to review whether she is only here for the costs of adaptations rather than coming back to live.

Have you contacted the Italian embassy to ask about her transfering her pension etc here and claiming the Italian entitlements in the UK in the same way as we would if we moved abroad, or is it that the UK payments are higher?

On a plus note, she's not 'brown' and would likely get away with getting an expensive operation and also expensive adpatations from a strained NHS and council budget.

tluscombe

Thanks for all the comments.

The problem with having the treatment in Italy is the convalesence and her ability - or probable lack of it - to travel after the op. I'm not too worried about the planned conversion of the downstairs rooms - will do most of it myself - but don't think I can get it done in time.

I'll follow up on the habitually resident info, very useful.

Oldernotwiser

tluscombe wrote: »

Thanks for all the comments.

The problem with having the treatment in Italy is the convalesence and her ability - or probable lack of it - to travel after the op. I'm not too worried about the planned conversion of the downstairs rooms - will do most of it myself - but don't think I can get it done in time.

I'll follow up on the habitually resident info, very useful.

Seeing that the NHS don't even know that your MIL exists you'll have considerably more than a couple of weeks whilst she seeks entry into the system and waits for assessment and then surgery!

If you're free to do all this building work in a couple of weeks, why can't you look after her whilst she convalesces? She'll be putting her life at risk whilst sorting this all out compared to having the surgery in the place where she's resident.

LondonDiva

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Seeing that the NHS don't even know that your MIL exists you'll have considerably more than a couple of weeks whilst she seeks entry into the system and waits for assessment and then surgery!

The new government has removed the 18 week target for ops, so it could take some time...