For anyone who pays towards care costs

To anyone who has paid private or NHS care costs or part thereof even if the person has died please read this

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/care-home-costs-reclaiming

George

I wish I could persuade my mother of this!

As she’s still with us, and of sound mind, I can’t initiate a claim without her cooperation, but in her words, she “can’t be bothered, because she doesn’t need the money”.

Last year, she spent several weeks in a care home, after breaking her ankle very badly. She was quite immobile.

Although she voluntarily chose a private home, which we thought, at the time, would be best (with hindsight, not so sure), I still believe the NHS owed her a contribution towards it. I don’t expect them to meet all of it (it would have been cheaper and probably preferable to install her at The Savoy), but she should have got a proportion equivalent to the care she would have needed wherever she’d stayed.

I’m really annoyed she won’t pursue this. I’d rather she claimed and gave it to a charity than just wrote it off like this.

NHS beancounters must be laughing and clapping each other on the back, seeing that she bore the whole cost herself, without ever questioning whether she HAD to. I bet that happens all the time!

As the article points out, it’s non-means tested, so pensioners shouldn’t be left feeling they wouldn’t qualify, if they’re not as hard-up as some. It’s a scandal that people are not being told they’re entitled to help with care, even if they choose not to take it from the NHS…

I even knew Mum was entitled to it, but she still didn’t damn well get it, because she’s completely non-assertive, and I couldn’t launch a claim on her behalf, without her backing. And it was not in the interests of anyone in the NHS to stop her throwing away free money. You’d have thought her GP might have had a quiet word, but no.

Tina