Nursing home bill

Karonher

I dont think this is the right place but wondered if someone could move it to the right place.

My friends uncle died in a nursing home last month and his daughter has received a bill for over £30,000. He must have been in about 6 months. The daughter is not really up to dealing with this so my friend is going to have to help her.

There are a few things they want to know.

Can CHC funding be backdated? With the conditions he had I was shocked it wasn't given when he went in. Can attendance allowance and FNC be backdated?

If the money has to be paid- I dont know about property but I gather there was no money- does it have to go down to £14,000? If the home was owned I assume it will cover the bill but I dont know if it was.

I am assuming the daughter does not have to find the money for the bill as she firstly had nothing to do with him going into the home and secondly does not have it.

thanks/

El_Torro

I am no expert in these matters but as I understand it the deceased’s estate owes the £30k, not the daughter of the deceased. So if there is any value in the estate (for example property worth £30k or more) then the £30k does need to be paid before anyone gets inheritance.

p00hsticks

did the deceased leave a will ?
If so who is the executor ?

Depending on the reasons he was admitted (e.g did he decide to move in, or was he sent there following discharge from hospital) I think it would be usual for some sort of financial assessment to be done by adult social care at the point or soon after he went in there. so a starting point could be to find out if one was done and what the conclusion was regarding the funding of his care. 

jaybeetoo

Who signed the agreement with the care home when he was admitted?  If it wasn’t the friends uncle, was it someone acting as his Attorney?  If so, did they sign the agreement with the words “Attorney for….”?

elsien

Yes, in some circumstances CHC and the FNC top up can be backdated after the person has passed away. 

https://caretobedifferent.co.uk/retrospective-claims-for-chc-claiming-interest-and-tricks-of-the-trade/

But you also need to check how he ended up in the car home – was it a discharge from Hospital to a short term bed that was made longer term, for example?

Did he have a CHC assessment while he was in the carehome and if He didn’t checklist, or he wasn’t eligible, was there any contact with the local authority and did he have a care act assessment?

but you do need to be aware that health funding is not based on the name of the condition that someone has. A dementia diagnosis and someone who has lost their mobility and need help with all their day-to-day needs may still not qualify, Because unless there’s any complexity, most of that care will fall under social care, not health.

Who has the care home bill come from, because if it’s the care home you need answers to who placed him there and why before you even think about paying anything.
It is possible that he chose to stay there and sign a funding agreement – you don’t say what his understanding was and whether there was a power of attorney or not.  

I have known care homes get people who don’t know if they’re coming or going to sign agreements, which would never stand up to any sort of scrutiny. 

And you definitely need to find out the status of the property that he was living in because if it was his and there was no one else living there that would mean it was discounted then there may well have been a deferred payment agreement. If it was a rental property and he had no money then someone else would’ve been funding it. So as above, how he got there is going to be a huge part of untangling all this. 

Someone mentioned financial assessments – they come after the needs assessment and in my area because of backlog they don’t happen soon after admission they happen a good few months down the line. So he may have been on the list for that, but it may not have happened. in which case his daughter would go back to the local authority and raise that. 

FlorayG

It's going to be complicated but the main thing is; no, his daughter does NOT owe the money, his estate does. If the estate isn't sufficient to pay the bill that is also not her problem.
There are threads on here of care homes chasing relatives for money after the death of the resident it seems to be common practice in some, but she can just tell them not to contact her about it as it's not her bill. Sometimes that's hard to do when they keep insisting.

jaybeetoo

FlorayG said:

It's going to be complicated but the main thing is; no, his daughter does NOT owe the money, his estate does. If the estate isn't sufficient to pay the bill that is also not her problem.
There are threads on here of care homes chasing relatives for money after the death of the resident it seems to be common practice in some, but she can just tell them not to contact her about it as it's not her bill. Sometimes that's hard to do when they keep insisting.

It depends on the agreement signed with the care home and whose name it was done in.  The debt should belong to the estate if the care home agreement was done properly.  

When my father went into a care home (he had dementia), I had to get the care home to change the agreement so I was signing it as his Attorney otherwise I’d have been liable for his care home fees.

Karonher

Thanks for all the answers. I will pass them on to my friend.

did the deceased leave a will ?
If so who is the executor ?

There was not a will and so no executor. He was sent to the home from hospital as he could not look after himself any more. I dont know anything about the agreement but I wwill pass all these answers to my friend and I will say thanks on her behalf.

RAS

Someone at the hospital (their social worker?) or in local social services should have done a financial assessment and arranged financing by the NHS or social services before the uncle moved in. 

Or did the niece arrange the home and sign the contract for it?

Unless there is property, or other major assets, the uncle's estate is likely to be insolvent?

So, who contracted the home and are therr assets?

Flugelhorn

RAS said:

Someone at the hospital (their social worker?) or in local social services should have done a financial assessment and arranged financing by the NHS or social services before the uncle moved in. 

Or did the niece arrange the home and sign the contract for it?

Unless there is property, or other major assets, the uncle's estate is likely to be insolvent?

So, who contracted the home and are therr assets?

agree the financial assessment should have been done - - can only assume they were unable to get all the info needed at the time

elsien

RAS said:

Someone at the hospital (their social worker?) or in local social services should have done a financial assessment and arranged financing by the NHS or social services before the uncle moved in. 

Or did the niece arrange the home and sign the contract for it?

Unless there is property, or other major assets, the uncle's estate is likely to be insolvent?

So, who contracted the home and are therr assets?

It doesn't work like that - there is too much of a backlog plus the finances come after the needs assessment so that in theory the needs are clarified before money comes into it. In many cases a long way after. Or the person goes to hospital on a short term health funded bed where no financial contribution is needed, and it later changes. There was another recent thread on here where someone had a large bill because they didn't realise the NHS funding had ended.
In my area people are moved to care homes for assessment on short term funding (up to 6 weeks.) They have the CHC assessment. They don't qualify for full health funding so the LA does their assessment. Helps the person to go home, or to move to housing with care, or to stay in 24 hour care depending on the needs. The financial assessment comes a long way after those decisions are made and sometimes people fall through the gaps and are left somewhere with no clarity around when or how that decision was made. 
The last I heard, financial assessments were happening 6 months plus down the line. And the social worker is different to the team carrying out the financial assessment so they can evidence that decisions are not based purely on finances. 

Your friend needs to ask what sort of bed he was discharged to the care home on.