The Welsh Assembly Government has announced that its scheme to reimburse wrongly paid care home fees prior to April 2003 will be coming to an end on the 4 December 2009.
The scheme was established following the Health Ombudsman report which advised Local Health Boards to review cases from April 1996 to date. If a person has been contributing towards their care fees from 1996, they may be entitled to a reimbursement of their fees. This is the case even if the person who was cared for has since died.
The scheme which is managed by Powys Local Health Board has paid out over £18 million pounds to over 500 Welsh families since 2004 in wrongly paid nursing home fees.
It is important that people are aware of this new deadline. This is their last chance to ask the Local Health Board for a review of care home fees paid before April 2003.
November 5, 2009 at 11:16 am
My mother spent over 4 years, from 2002 to 2006, in a nursing home after suffering a stroke. She paid and average of about £115/week for her care from her pensions. Only some of her need was provided by nursing staff and a claim for totally funded care was rejected. I now understand that the Welsh Assembly are allowing claims but I do not know if stroke victims are eligible. Can you advise?
November 6, 2009 at 11:08 am
If a person’s primary need is for health, they should be the responsibility of the NHS. This is the legal test set by the Court of Appeal in 1999. It is not the diagnosis alone that qualify someone for continuing care, it is the needs of the individual, therefore for example people who have suffered strokes, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, cancer, pulmonary disease, severe arthritis etc may qualify for continuing care.
If you feel your relative may be eligible for continuing care, you can ask the Health Board to undertake a retrospective review for the time he/she was in a care home. This is the case, even if the person has since died. In Wales, we have a deadline for claims where the individual was paying for care from April 1996 to April 2003. All claims must be registered with the Health Board before to the 4 December 2009.
November 28, 2009 at 9:22 am
My father Neville Jones was in hospital from Dec 2003 to Apr 2004 when he was forced from the local community hospital (where he was very happy) into a local nursing home. He suffered a stroke in May 2004 and died in Sept 2004. During the last few months of his life he needed 24 hour care and was unable to do anything for himself. He was catherterised and was confined to bed and was unable to communicate or feed himself. The nursing component of his care was paid for by the LHB but the remaining approx £400 per week was paid by my mother. Do you feel we are eligible to make a claim and how do we do this?
March 29, 2010 at 8:37 am
If you are eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare all the nursing home fees are paid by the NHS. On the brief information you have provided, I would advise you to contact your local health authority (Health Board in Wales or PCT in England) and ask them to undertake a retrospective review for the period your father was paying for his care.