Council has dithered for months over my 100-year-old mum’s care home fees

My 100-year-old mother has spent the last four years in a care home and has paid the fees from her savings. As they dwindled towards £23,250 – when council funding kicks in – I contacted Derbyshire county council. Five months of phone calls passed before it carried out a needs assessment, and it was another month before her application was passed to its finance department. Seven months on, I haven’t received a single letter in acknowledgment, or to advise of progress. The care home fees are £4,000 a month, and my mother’s savings are fast running out.
CFW, Bristol

Care home residents are eligible to apply for council funding when their capital falls below a certain level. In England and Northern Ireland that’s £23,250. The threshold in Scotland is £29,750 and £50,000 in Wales. I contacted the council about the case in June. It apologised for the delay and blamed increased levels of demand. “We acknowledge we should have communicated more frequently and clearly about expected time scales,” it said, and confirmed your mother would not be evicted if her savings ran out before funding was approved.

You were swiftly contacted, but not, alas, with the long-awaited funding decision. Instead, seven months after your application, the council requested four years of your mother’s financial records. A month after my contact, you were told the funding had been agreed and would be backdated to April when your mother became eligible. It wasn’t until late August, by then nine months and many sleepless nights after your application, that you received the rebate for the fees your mother paid while the council dithered.

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