Category: News
Date: 04.03.2006
Printable version
Panorama reveals the scandal of thousands of families across England and Wales who have been forced to sell their family home to pay for the long-term medical care, in a nursing home, of a sick relative - care that should, legally, have been paid for by the NHS.
Independent research specially commissioned for Panorama: National Homes Swindle - Sunday 5 March, BBC ONE, 10.15pm - establishes that thousands of families have had to sell their homes to pay for health care that should have been free, on the basis of unlawful decisions by the NHS (note 1).
The present Government criticised the Conservatives for forcing 40,000 pensioners a year to sell their homes.
Tony Blair said he did not want children "brought up in a country where the only way pensioners can get long term care is by selling their home".
Commenting on the situation now, David Hinchliffe, the former Chair of the Commons Select Committee on Health, says: "It's scandalous... it leaves you with a very bitter taste."
A test case determined when the NHS should pay for care but, in practice, the programme reveals, this judgement is being widely disregarded.
Lawyer Nicola Mackintosh represented Pamela Coughlan in her landmark case (note 2).
Nicola Mackintosh says: "What's happening is that vulnerable older people, younger people who are severely ill and in need of care and attention are being charged for health care which should be free under the NHS.
"When I say it's free, of course, we've all paid for it. We pay for it through taxes. So it's double charging.
"It's dishonest and it's quite astonishing that it's gone on for so long unaddressed."
The Government says it has complied with the judgement in the case.
In 2001 it issued new guidance to health authorities, and a document headed: Free nursing care.
Yet the Government has set up an assessment system under which most families still pay most of the cost of care themselves.
Panorama reports on cases where families believe that their relative's health care needs are so severe that the bills should, legally, have been paid by the NHS.
But, instead, they have been refused continuing care and homes have been put under threat or sold as a result.
People like:
Rose Fulcher, incapacitated by a stroke;
William Hancock, 91, dying from bone and prostate cancer;
Barbara Garlick, an Alzheimer's disease sufferer who, after surviving a coma, is helpless and cannot swallow.
"It's theft. It's outrageous theft and it's going on over this country hundreds and hundreds of times,'' says Linda McCarthy, whose mother has dementia and Parkinson's disease.
The local council have imposed a legal charge on her mother's home so that her care fees will be paid for whenever the house is sold.
Notes to Editors
1. Independent research specially commissioned for Panorama, "Self-funding of long-term care and potential for injustice" by Melanie Henwood.
2. The Coughlan case in the Court of Appeal in 1999 defined the line between "social" care which local authorities provide, which is means-tested, and health care, which the NHS provides, free.
It said that where a person's primary need was for health care then their care in a care home should be provided free by the NHS.
(The local authority could only be responsible for their care if their medical or nursing needs were "incidental to" or "ancillary to" their need for accommodation).
SS
