174,000 people could qualify for funded care

Published: 12/01/2015

Regarded as one of the state’s best kept secrets, new figures have shown that 174,000 people are currently paying care home fees when in fact they should have their care paid for by the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Residential care is extremely expensive, costing on average over £3000 a month. In the last five years more than a million people have had no other choice but to sell their homes in order to pay for the ongoing care of a loved one. Whilst this is a terrible situation for anyone to be in, sadly in many cases it could have been avoided completely.

Funded care is not based on income or assets

Many people wrongly presume, because they earn a certain amount or have a significant amount of assets, they automatically have to pay care home fees. This is not true. Cases for funded care are based solely on the health of the patient. If they require care for a primary health need, such as dementia, Alzheimer’s or after suffering a stroke or heart attack, care should be paid for - regardless of personal wealth.

Bamboozled

The prospect of a loved one having to go into care is a highly emotional time. However the situation is often made even more difficult by the speed at which it is dealt with. Families are often given short notice to attend a funding assessment meeting, patients are then incorrectly assessed and the option of funded care is never even made apparent.

Lee Baker heads up the Care Homes team at Goldsmith Williams:

“It is so frustrating that so many people and families are completely unaware of the financial help available to them when a loved one goes into care. It’s staggering to think that so many people are struggling unnecessarily.

“We’re already helping hundreds of families reclaim care home fees and can help anyone who has a loved one who has recently gone into, or is about to go into, residential or nursing care. We can arrange for a patient to be reassessed and lodge an appeal if it appears they were wrongly assessed. We can also arrange for an experienced nurse assessor to accompany the patient to the assessment to ensure the correct process is followed.

“It is our aim to help as many people as possible understand the options available to them. After all our health service is one of the things that makes this country so great. It is only right that this service is provided to patients when they need it most.”

Content correct at time of publication