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HS-2400 and JW-3141 T
Ms T complained that she would not have needed to sell her uncle, Mr R’s, house until after his death had the NHS assessed him correctly as being eligible for NHS continuing care funding.
Ms T’s uncle was admitted to a nursing home from hospital in July 2002. Before he was discharged, Greenwich Council had advised Ms T that she would need to sell her uncle’s property to fund his care costs. Ms T delayed Greenwich Council’s financial assessment for several months whilst she pursued an appeal against the decision of Greenwich Teaching Primary Care Trust (the PCT) that her uncle was not eligible for NHS continuing care. Despite several reviews by the PCT and South East London Strategic Health Authority, the PCT declined to fund his care costs. Ms T sold her uncle’s home shortly after his transfer to the nursing home.
Following a retrospective review in March 2004, the PCT agreed to reimburse the care costs that Ms T’s uncle had paid. Ms T claimed that she would have retained her uncle’s property until he died in August 2003, and benefited from the resulting increase in value of £20,000. Her uncle had made it clear to her when he was admitted to nursing home care that he did not want his house to be sold and they both found it very distressing to have had to do so. Ms T sought financial redress from the PCT.
I agreed to investigate Ms T’s complaint against the PCT and the Department in November 2004. In June 2005 Ms T referred her complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) to consider the actions of the London Borough of Greenwich (Greenwich Council) in not offering a deferred payment agreement which would have prevented the sale of her uncle’s home in 2002. The LGO discontinued his investigation following Greenwich Council’s offer to pay £20,000 to Ms T in redress.
Whilst the financial loss Ms T claims has been remedied, I consider that it is still the case that Ms T and her uncle experienced the inconvenience and distress of prematurely selling her uncle’s home as a result of having to decide how to fund his care.
The settlement of £27,651 paid to Ms T by the PCT in March 2004 included a sum of £26,822 for the care home fees that had been paid and £829 ‘in respect of inflation by reference to the Retail Price Index’ (RPI). The PCT did not provide a breakdown of its calculation to Ms T.
6. Based on information provided to my staff by the Department for Work and Pensions, Ms T’s uncle retained £4,531 in benefits (attendance allowance and state pension).
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An alternative approach to calculating the recompense due to Ms T is based on the principle of applying interest at the County Court judgment debt rate to the care costs paid but taking account of the benefits retained (referred to in paragraph 32). The cost of care paid by Mr R (£26,822) is multiplied by the time between the start of care and the date the payment was made (20 months) and the interest rate (8%) to give a value of interest of £3,576. The total sum of care fees plus interest is £30,398. The £4,531 in benefits retained is deducted from this. I would therefore expect Ms T to have received £25,867. |
7. Conclusion
Ms T has been paid £27,651 by the PCT for care costs and interest and retained £4,531 in benefits overpayments; a total sum of £32,182. Therefore, in light of the benefits retained by Ms T’s uncle’s estate, I consider that further financial redress in recognition of the unnecessary distress and inconvenience caused by having to decide how to fund her uncle’s care is not required.
