Sudden massive care home bill

shadowqueen

About 6 months ago my mother had a heart attack and had to be rushed into hospital. She was the sole carer for my father who has severe dementia/aphasia, so he had to be rushed off to a residential care home (I live several hundred miles away, so couldn't take over).
Shortly after moving into this home he had another stroke which affected his movement.

Although my mother recovered well, it was decided that for the sake of her health it was better that we look into getting continuous care within a nursing home environment for my father, so he stayed where he was while he could be assessed. The care home, while lovely, wouldn't give us any details of fees until we could be assessed. Now that the NHS has finally decided my father needs to move to a better equipped nursing home his current residential care home has suddenly furnished us with a great big lump sum of a bill of nearly £15,000.

I was under the impression that under the NHS continuing care scheme the local authority would pay for my father's room and board and care due to the severity of his mental condition. Is this something I should be fighting?

If this is only for nursing care and not for residential care is there any way of making the bill a little more manageable? It seems like an awful lot to spring on somebody.

I'd love to hear from anybody in a similar situation or with any suggestions.

monkeyspanner

Sorry to hear about your mum and dad's problems.

The local authority social services if involved in arranging for your father to be moved to the care home should have organissed the relevant care assessment and if required a CHC funding assessment. If in England this should have included at least an initial CHC checklist to assertain if a full CHC assessment should be carried out.

Unfortunately proceedures are not always followed and you may well need to follow up to see exactly what was done.

Two question - has your father now been assessed and awarded CHC funding? If not has he been awarded a nursing supplement?

In either case it is worth checking what assessments have been done and what were the outcomes. If an assessment has not been done you should request a retrospective CHC review at least from the time he was moved into the care home. If an assessment has been done you should have been provided with the details of their decision and given the opportunity to comment.

In terms of finance if CHC funding has been awarded this will pick up all the costs of your fathers care from the date of the award and is not means tested. If this date is after his move to the care home then the initial period needs to be covered by a retrospective review. If CHC has not been awarded then the first thing to note is that neither you or your mother is responsible for the care home costs from your personal assets. Any joint savings accounts your parents have will be assessed at 50%. The care home costs should come only from your father's assets and income. Your mum and dad's property should be excluded from any financial assessment if your mum will return there to live. If your dad's capital assets are under around £23000 then the council will be expected to assist with the fees. Dependant on the level of care required the council will set a level of fees up to which they will support financially. If the care home fees are higher than this the social services may ask for a 3rd party top-up from you or your mum. Please note they cannot force you to pay but may suggest an alternate care home. The council social services have to support to a higher level of fees if there is not a care home place locally capable of providing the level of care required and willing to accept the council support fee structure.

Would I be right in assuming your mum has control of the finances? If not you may need to consider getting a power of attorney put in place.

If you would like to post some more detail I will try to point you in the right direction. and good place to start is this guide to care home funding http://www.independentage.org/guides/guide-16/

Resolving retrospective CHC awards will be time consuming and may involve a considerable delay as the NHS is struggling to clear a backlog of claims generated by deadlines imposed last year for claims.

I hope this very basic explanation helps.