Continuing Health care

Time is running out for many of Britain's most vulnerable people who are struggling to pay crippling care bills
could be eligible for several years backdated funding from a "secret"  scheme. If no one acts on their behalf before the end of next month the right to retrospective payments going back to 2004 will be lost.

Every year thousands of family properties are sold to enable mainly elderly people to meet the costs of their care. But if the main reason for a person going into a home is ill-health they should be eligible for the virtually unknown Continuing Healthcare.

Which means that the NHS covers all the costs, including accommodation. There is no ceiling on the amount that can be paid out, there is no means test and it is not age-related.

Anyone who is successful in claiming on behalf of a loved one could be entitled to have the payments backdated to April 2004, even if their relative is no longer alive. But applications must be submitted before 30 September.

Access to Continuing Healthcare can be particularly difficult for those suffering from dementia. Michelle Mitchell, charity director general of Age UK, is also concerned. "The NHS needs to do more to make people aware of Continuing Healthcare, particularly for those families that may have been eligible in the past and are running out of time to make a claim," she says.

Should the initial check suggest that a person may be eligible, the pct will call on what is known in the jargon as the "decision support tool", which involves a series of separate assessments covering 12 different "care domains" – including behaviour, skin condition and mobility. The results can take weeks.

Pamela Coughlan needed full-time care after she was paralysed in a road accident. This was paid for by the NHS until her local health authority transferred responsibility to the social services, which meant she was subject to means-testing and had to pay the costs herself. After a two-year legal battle that went to the Cour.

Appeal, the ruling was that the responsibility for looking after someone with severe medical problems lies squarely with the health service, and therefore savings and assets don't come into the equation about who picks up the bill.

continuing