Son reclaims £33,000 after wrongly paying father’s care home fees

Published: 10/08/2012

A son has won his case against his Primary Care Trust (PCT) after he was forced to pay his father’s care home fees which should have been covered by the NHS’s continuing healthcare scheme.

John Young Jnr arranged for both his pension and benefits to be transferred to the care home along with proceeds from the sale of his house to pay for his father’s, John Young Snr, care.

However a continuing healthcare assessment, conducted by the Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Trust (PCT), confirmed Mr Yong Snr was, in fact, eligible for full funding. Yet despite this, John Young Jnr was not reimbursed for the fees he had already paid.

John Young Jnr has so far recovered £33,000 plus an additional £14,045.81 from Bradford Council who continued to collect his pension and benefits. Mr Young Jnr is now appealing the assessment that his father was not eligible for funding for some of the time he was receiving care.

“This was a particularly distressing time for us,” Mr Young Jnr explains.

“My father’s health was deteriorating and he clearly needed more specialist care than we were able to provide.

We were keen for him to move into a care home where he could be looked after properly but given the state of his health I didn’t believe that he should have to pay for these fees himself.”

Anyone who requires residential care for a health reason, such as Alzheimer’s, Dementia or after suffering a stroke, is eligible for NHS continuing healthcare. This means any care home fees are fully funded by their Primary Care Trust, regardless of personal wealth or assets.

However many patients were wrongly assessed, or in some case not assessed at all, leaving their families to foot the bill for their care. With the average care home fees costing in the region of £700 per week, many families, like John Young Jnr, had little other option but to sell their property and/or use their pensions, benefits and savings to fund their loved ones care.

Goldsmith Williams is dedicated in helping families in a similar situation as John reclaim care home fees. However time is of the essence as, for the majority of cases, the deadline to start to reclaim care home fees is 30 September 2012. After this date, many families will lose their right to reclaim.

To see if Goldsmith Williams could help you reclaim wrongly paid care home fees, please contact our dedicated team on 0800 999 2567 or by completing our online enquiry form.

Content correct at time of publication