My parent has gone into a nursing home, will I have to sell their home to fund their care?

This is a common dilemma that people face when their loved one moves into a nursing home. Many people are wrongly told that they will have to sell the family home to fund the cost of care. If you’re loved one is in a nursing home because of their physical and or mental health needs then they may be paying fees that the NHS should be funding. This type of funding by the NHS is known as NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding (CHC).

CHC is a package of care arranged and funded solely by the NHS, which can be received in hospital, a nursing home or at the individual’s home. This is often described as ‘fully funded care’.

If your loved one has a primary health need then the NHS must pay for their care in full, regardless of how much money they have. To be eligible your loved one must have needs that are:

• Complex, intense or unpredictable;
• Not supplementary (incidental or ancillary) to the accommodation your local authority is under a duty to provide; or
• Not of a nature typically provided for by a social services department.

This means that even people who own their own property and have savings can be eligible for CHC as eligibility depends on your health needs rather than your ability to pay. We have acted for many families and recovered thousands of pounds in wrongly paid care home fees. We have obtained CHC for people who suffer from dementia, strokes, diabetes, epilepsy, and paralysis as examples. We have also acted for families where their loved ones have died as it possible to reclaim care home fees after your loved one has passed away.

We are the local experts at obtaining CHC and have saved families thousands of pounds. We have a credible reputation within the local NHS and have built good working relationships with those in the local NHS that assess eligibility for CHC. We can therefore use this to our client’s advantage. To find out if your loved one is entitled to CHC the first step is to contact us on 01823 273010. We provide free consultations and will advise you if you have a claim that is worth pursuing.