Care home fees for escorting to medical appts

pollypenny

Medical appointments are hardly 'personal spends'. I doubt anyone is going for an appointment on a whim. 

Hairdressing and manicures are treats, hospital /GP visits are possibly life saving. 

Spendless

pollypenny said:

Medical appointments are hardly 'personal spends'. I doubt anyone is going for an appointment on a whim. 

Hairdressing and manicures are treats, hospital /GP visits are possibly life saving. 

I very much suspect it will come under that category though, just like 'catch a taxi to a medical appointment' would if no relative was willing or able to give a lift.

I truly think the LA will take this view though I really hope I'm wrong. 

Longwalker

When my mum was in hospital for 2 months, and she had to go to the city for tests, they rang and asked if we were prepared to take her else there would be days or weeks to wait

We also had to bring her home on Sundays else she spent the day in the day room as Sundays was deep clean day ( medical ward not surgical )

This was 10 years ago

I imagine with the NHS on its knees that costs are being cut everywhere . I know its no help to you but this is how things are now  Where I live we have a lot of local charities stepping in supplying chaperoned transport 

Gavin83

noclaf said:

elsien said:

I would be going back to the local authority and flag this up with them in terms of commissioning. Because if they are part funding her care, presumably they will be picking up the extra.

I guess the question here is how should I frame this to the LA, write a letter stating the care home have advised of this and can it be factored into her fin assessment calculation? The issue I can see is that I cannot accurately predict how much charges my mum will end up paying over the next year or so and the LA can't either so can't see how it can be assessed etc 

It won't be factored into the financial assessment calculation. The rules are quite clear on this. The council have a ceiling rate they'll pay to care homes and I can guarantee you this is what they're already paying for your mum. Care homes know the rate and therefore that's what they'll typically ask for. She then pays her pension minus a small allowance.

Therefore if the LA was to factor it in they'd effectively be paying it. There are very few circumstances that they'll pay above their ceiling rate so they'll almost certainly refuse to pay this charge.

What I'm less clear about is the obligations of the care home. On the balance of probabilities I'd probably disagree with elsien, I don't think this would be considered an essential service but I will caveat this by saying I think this is a bit of a grey area. Of course they wouldn't prevent the medical appointment but they'd certainly argue that the transport nor the accompanying element is their responsibility.

A lot of care homes also run low levels of staff and sparing one to join a medical appointment could well leave them short of their legal requirements.

Assuming they do have a legal requirement to attend they could still make it difficult. If a resident was requiring a lot of medical appointments and the care home was losing money they could potentially evict the resident. They could decide not to accept the council rate and request a top up from everyone. Essentially there are ways around it even if it does prove to be a requirement. Obviously they may choose not to take this route but it is an option.

noclaf

Thanks for the all the comments, if as I suspect we will need to just absorb the additional costs then not much we can do. If we think care costs are high now.....I only see it going up further as more ad-hoc costs/expenses are brought into scope. Let's not forget the private care/nursing homes are a 'business'....the senior directors at the firm who own my mother's care took huge bonuses earlier this year (between £5-10mm).

2 additional questions if anyone can help:
1. If my mother's total funds/savings drop below the £14k threshold (14250?) and the LA reassess for her financial assessment what are the possible/likely outcomes? We aren't there yet but thought I would check given care expenses are in reading YoY

2. As my mothers deputy, I've been asked to check that she is receiving all benefits she is entitled to, when she went into the care home her AA was stopped (I think it gets redirected towards her care costs rather than being directly paid but not sure?), she receives state pension and a civil service pension as well as an annual payment to help with utility bill costs...it was £300 last year but typically £200 in a normal year (pre- Ukraine war, cost of living crisis etc). Apart from the benefits I've already mentioned don't think my mum would be due any others? She has dementia and is medically deemed as lacking capacity. 

HillStreetBlues

tetrarch said:

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment.

If you accept that taking residents to medical appointments does incur a cost to the care home as a whole. 

Is it right that families who DO take their relatives to these appointments should subsidise the cost for those who have care home staff perform this task?

Regards

Tet

But what if you take that a step further.
Is it fair for families that DO care for their relatives at their home, having to subsidise the cost for those who don't via their council tax.

Gavin83

noclaf said:

1. If my mother's total funds/savings drop below the £14k threshold (14250?) and the LA reassess for her financial assessment what are the possible/likely outcomes? We aren't there yet but thought I would check given care expenses are in reading YoY

Well if she's already being partially funded by the council I can't see much changing. Her contribution will drop as she'll no longer be contributing from her savings but that's about it.

noclaf said:

2. As my mothers deputy, I've been asked to check that she is receiving all benefits she is entitled to, when she went into the care home her AA was stopped (I think it gets redirected towards her care costs rather than being directly paid but not sure?), she receives state pension and a civil service pension as well as an annual payment to help with utility bill costs...it was £300 last year but typically £200 in a normal year (pre- Ukraine war, cost of living crisis etc). Apart from the benefits I've already mentioned don't think my mum would be due any others? She has dementia and is medically deemed as lacking capacity. 

If she's in a care home being funded by the council she won't be entitled to AA. Even if she was entitled to it then it would be considered as part of her contribution to her care costs so she'd be no better off anyway.

I'm certainly not an expert on benefits but should she be receiving help with utility costs if she doesn't even pay for utilities?

noclaf

Thanks Gavin83, all of what you mentioned tallies so I think I've covered all the possible/potential benefits. 

Regarding the utility costs I also wondered the same and checked at the time she received the benefit on the government website, based on the guidance at the time she was indeed in-scope for the payment (it's not deemed a benefit and excluded from the LA fin assessment) but as to the 'why' I don't know...above my pay grade and something only the govt/HMRC might know?