Care home fees not subject to contract law?

Exodi

onomatopoeia99 said:

If you think the decision by the local authority to move him to the social care that caused the charges was incorrect, you (as in a barrister acting for you) could potentially apply for a writ of certiorari to have the decision found incorrect and quashed.

Not sure why people are discussing how to fund social care in the future, what's that got to do with answering the question?

Newton's third law. This style of thread comes up very often.

The premise being, for the OP to be successful in having her late father's estate avoid paying for his own care (which by the OP's own admission, he would have been liable to do so and this may have been told to him at the time if he hadn't been refusing to disclose his savings), the cost would have to be borne by the taxpayer instead. Someone has to pay it.

The second part however is very commonly omitted - e.g:

Spendless said:

To me it's not the issue that the care needs paying for.   In those circs I'd just have preferred that someone would make it clear upfront that would be the case. The OP says this didn't happen. 

But obviously it would be less agreeable to the reader if this comment ended in "Therefore, I believe the taxpayer should pay it." because I'm sure we're not naive enough to think the end goal for this is a sorry on the phone.

As these threads come up often, related discussions were started on how this could be avoided in the future (e.g. if care is no longer paid on a case-by-case basis, beneficiaries wouldn't need to go out of their way to try to avoid paying it).

jessthecat_2

onomatopoeia99 said:

Not sure why people are discussing how to fund social care in the future, what's that got to do with answering the question?

Thank you.
The pertinent question is, are the local authority exempt from the fundamental basics of contract law?
Can they enforce a bill of a size of their choosing after the fact, with no agreement in place, with no advance notification of costs, without the patient even having any input in being placed there in the first instance?

Dad was moved into a grotty little room in a grotty understaffed facility. Food was basic in the extreme and "rehab" was non-existent. For the obscene amount of money they're now billing, he could have been in a 5-star hotel with a physio on permanent call. And if there'd been any upfront transparency, I'm sure he'd have opted for the latter.

The more I read other people's similar tales, the more I'm convinced that local authorities think they're a law unto themselves, with the right to asset-strip without accountability. 

Anyway, this was just our first experience of care homes. The next was even worse...

After Dad returned home from this stay, being terminally ill, he inevitably wound up back in hospital a few months later. This time, again without any agreement or discussion, he was removed from his NHS bed into a different nursing home. My sister and I visited the day after he moved in and were immediately presented with a contract by the management. Great, we thought - transparency this time! And a much nicer place. The contract clearly stated that he was fully funded, it was open-ended, and had a full booklet of T&Cs including that the home was required to give either 4 or 6 weeks' notice to alter the terms, depending on the circumstances. The manager even said, "The stay is fully funded, there's nothing for you to pay". So the contract was signed the same day.

Several months later he served notice as per the contract because he wanted to return to his own home. During the notice period they suddenly gave him a new contract demanding well over £1000pw backdated to a couple of weeks after he'd been taken in and gave him a deadline of under 24 hours to sign it else, they said, he'd be deemed anyway to have accepted it. We wrote immediately that he would not accept any backdated terms and was not required to under the terms of their own contract. Then a bill for over £30,000 arrived. We're still fighting it.

jessthecat_2

The premise being, for the OP to be successful in having her late father's estate avoid paying for his own care (which by the OP's own admission, he would have been liable to do so and this may have been told to him at the time if he hadn't been refusing to disclose his savings), the cost would have to be borne by the taxpayer instead. Someone has to pay it.

*** He wouldn't necessarily have been liable for the debt, as that falsely assumes that the only course of action was to incur a debt. If the costs had been declared upfront and an open and transparent conversation taken place, he could have chosen for those costs not to have been incurred at all. He could have gone back to his own home with our help, and made private arrangements for carers to visit. The NHS/social services alone incurred those costs by not being clear about the consequences to him of them moving him into a home, thus not allowing him to make an informed alternative choice.

----

But obviously it would be less agreeable to the reader if this comment ended in "Therefore, I believe the taxpayer should pay it." because I'm sure we're not naive enough to think the end goal for this is a sorry on the phone.

*** The end goal is to put the onus on the claimant to prove the debt, as would happen in any other walk of life.

MattMattMattUK

MeteredOut said:

Exodi said:

gm0 said:

Many people think the system needs radical reform and a large lump of new additional social care money will have to be taken via taxation - from somewhere if we are to move from "those who use it pay if they can" to "everybody pays".

As we know, very difficult politically.

National Insurance increased by 1.25% from April 2022 to (eventually) subsidise social care.
*Public uproar, very damaging to the Tories aspired reputation as the party of low tax.*
National Insurance decreased by 1.25% from November 2022, cancelling out the above.
National Insurance* decreased 2% from January 2024, intended to win voters before a general election this year.

As is often the case, the general public is against high care costs but simultaneously against paying higher taxes to mitigate them. As we see time and time again on this forum, the preferred view is to make 'someone else' pay for the care, despite having the financial means to do so.

I think whoever gets in after the next GE needs to make some serious reforms to social care via general taxation, as Boris Johnson once tried to do. The current system is not sustainable, self-funders are subsidising those without and there is a evidently a large effort by self-funders to wrangle out of even paying for their own care.

We apply the 'everybody pays' principle to NHS treatment, so it's not unfamiliar to do the same with social care. You still have the option for private treatment, like you do with healthcare.

I do not mind paying more tax if it means we have a more sustainable social care sector and we get less of the blatant DoA threads.

Has anyone calculated what that would cost, both in absolute terms, or in the increase in tax level that would be required to sustain it, as people are living longer and longer?

The last solid estimate I can find is from 2012, where it was estimated to cost around £6 billion per year, so a straight inflation figure would put that at £8.26 billion, but with rising costs in the sector, probably closer to £10 billion. Increasing the base rate of income tax by 1p would generate around £5.5 billion, so we would need to add 2p to the base rate of income tax to fund it, although it could be met by adding 1p to National Insurance rates, or 1.2% VAT increase, or a reduction in the personal allowance by around £1,400.

MeteredOut said:

And therein lies the issue; if someone have a policy that stated "Pay x% more tax now and we'll fund your social care in future", would it be a vote winner?

Almost certainly not, the main problem being those who are being asked to pay will not benefit from it and those who will benefit from it will not be asked to pay, so it would divide people. It is one of those things that the nation needs to have a proper, grown up conversation about taxes, services and what people want from society. I am in favour of something much closer to the Scandinavian model, it would involve everyone (including me) paying more taxes, but getting a better society in return, but our society is a lot more divided that Scandinavian societies and we would need to significantly reduce immigration, upskill British workers and make them a lot more efficient and replace almost all of our political class with people who were even mildly competent and far less self serving. 

Hoenir

jessthecat_2 said:

At some point last year he was removed from his NHS bed, by the NHS, and placed in one of their rehabilitation facilities for a few weeks.
At no point was he asked whether he wanted to go, the paramedics simply took him from his bed and transferred him.

Next time you see a news article on the TV with a queue of ambulances waiting to discharge patients into a hospital. Remember bed spaces are not infinite. Discharging patients who no longer require medical care is a challenge. Families often these days absolve of the problem. No hestitation in complaining. Yet are unwilling to put themselves out.  

As too often the case these days. Only when the issue of money arises and who pays. Is there keen interest in the topic. 

elsien

While he was at the care home, did he have a CHC nursing needs assessment?

Because people quite often move from hospital to care homes as short term health funded beds for which there is no charge, but this is for the purposes of assessment.
  At the point of assessment which should be at four weeks, but can take longer that is when the decision is made as to whether they remain health funded or whether the needs are primarily social care and the local authority step in. This is the point of which a financial assessment would be relevant. This cannot be done until after the needs assessment has been completed, but the person should be told about it at that point.

Does this sound as if it may fit your father’s circumstances?

Malthusian

Exodi said:

gm0 said:

Many people think the system needs radical reform and a large lump of new additional social care money will have to be taken via taxation - from somewhere if we are to move from "those who use it pay if they can" to "everybody pays".

As we know, very difficult politically.

National Insurance increased by 1.25% from April 2022 to (eventually) subsidise social care.

Off-topic, but that is not correct; the April 2022 increase in NI was allocated almost entirely towards the NHS. The "care levy" stuff was a meaningless marketing label. 

There was no social care subsidy attached to the tax hike, only the "lifetime cap" which very few people will get anywhere near, as it does not cover accommodation costs. 

Malthusian

jessthecat_2 said:

Dad was moved into a grotty little room in a grotty understaffed facility. Food was basic in the extreme and "rehab" was non-existent. For the obscene amount of money they're now billing, he could have been in a 5-star hotel with a physio on permanent call. And if there'd been any upfront transparency, I'm sure he'd have opted for the latter.

A five-star hotel would not have let him in as they are not equipped to look after those with care needs. Providing a marble bath for someone to bathe themselves in is considerably cheaper and easier than safely lifting a full grown, often frail and confused adult and bathing them in a plastic one. 

If he didn't have care needs and didn't need to be in the rehab facility, nobody would have stopped him calling a taxi and going home.

I do sympathise because I can see why you/he could have got the impression this was NHS treatment rather than care. The NHS used to have convalescence facilities in the olden days where people would be sent to recover from treatment. (In the modern era the increased expectations placed on the NHS make it untenable to have mostly-healthy people blocking a bed when they could be recovering at home.) But as others have said, this was a care home and the council had a duty of care if he was not safe to be sent to his own home.

sheramber

Dad was moved into a grotty little room in a grotty understaffed facility. Food was basic in the extreme and "rehab" was non-existent. For the obscene amount of money they're now billing, he could have been in a 5-star hotel with a physio on permanent call. And if there'd been any upfront transparency, I'm sure he'd have opted for the latter.

So it was okay to put up with the conditions if it was free rather than spend some of his money and move to better facilities.

if he had been open and tansparent about his finances he could  have had better facilities.  Maybe not a five star hotel but a more comfortable care home .

Spendless

elsien said:

While he was at the care home, did he have a CHC nursing needs assessment?

Because people quite often move from hospital to care homes as short term health funded beds for which there is no charge, but this is for the purposes of assessment.
  At the point of assessment which should be at four weeks, but can take longer that is when the decision is made as to whether they remain health funded or whether the needs are primarily social care and the local authority step in. This is the point of which a financial assessment would be relevant. This cannot be done until after the needs assessment has been completed, but the person should be told about it at that point.

Does this sound as if it may fit your father’s circumstances?

This would explain my Nan's experience that I described in an earlier post.

OP - I think you need to query this aspect as per above reply.