Daily Express Tuesday, July 30, 2019 9DX1STby dementia care bills
just like cancer or heart disease.
Families shouldn’t have to fight
for the care their loved ones need
and lose everything they have in
doing so.
It’s hard to comprehend how
stories of people paying up to
£200,000 for dementia care have
become an unavoidable reality.
The new Prime Minister must
outline how to tackle this issue. If
the NHS cannot afford to pay for
dementia care, the Government
must find the funding.
With one million people
expected to develop dementia in
the UK by 2021, the NHS and the
lives of so many people depend
on the delivery of this promise.
Meanwhile, the hundreds of
thousands already living with
dementia can’t wait any longer.
Some help must be given now.
That’s why Alzheimer’s Society
is calling for the extra costs of
specialist dementia care to be
met by a £2.4billion NHS
Dementia Fund immediately.
No one should be forced to sell
their home just because they
develop one health condition and
not another.
Boris Johnson must end this
injustice now.COMMENT
SALLY COPLEY
Director of policy and campaigns
at Alzheimer’s SocietySOCIAL CARE
HOW many more billions must
people with dementia spend on
care before the Government takes
action?
Every day, families tell us how
fearful they are as they struggle
to navigate the broken system.
Far too many continue to be
blindsided by sky-high care fees,
passed back and forth between
the NHS and local authorities,
often denied the support they
desperately need.
They tell us they have given up
fighting because they cannot fight
both the system and the disease.
The cruel, unjust costs of social
care have a massive impact on
people with dementia and their
families, many of whom have
battled to get care for their loved
ones, often having to sell their
homes to do so.
Like Phillip Scott, who only got
funding for his mother after three
applications, having already sold
her home and used her life
savings, shelling out £160,000 for
her care.
Dementia is a health conditionSystem is broken... Sally CopleyCapell died, aged 92, in 2015 and
Mrs Lesiak, and her brother John,
70, battled through a five-year
application and appeal procedure.
Mrs Capell had Alzheimer’s,
heart failure, poor mobility, osteo-
porosis and double incontinence.
“I want to know exactly how ill
a person has to be before theyqualify for continuing health
care,” said Mrs Lesiak, a mother
of two from Colchester, Essex.
“It’s almost as if the Clinical
Commissioning Groups are using
dementia as an excuse not to pay.
“Health Secretary Matt
Hancock said no one should have
to sell their homes, he should tellthat to his own constituency West
Suffolk Clinical Commissioning
Group.”
A spokesman for the CCG
admitted mistakes were made
during the assessment but said
that the errors made no difference
to the decision.
He said: “There are nationally
set eligibility guidelines relating
to NHS Continuing Healthcare
(CHC) strictly adhered to by the
clinical commissioning group.
“Mrs Capell had a full NHS
CHC assessment and in her case
the Multidisciplinary Team recom-
mended she was not eligible.
“We acknowledge that some
mistakes were made during the
assessment process.
“The independent review panel
commented on this, and we have
acknowledged that best practice
was not adhered to at all times.
Our processes have been
amended as a result.
“However, our original decision
regarding Mrs Capell’s eligibility
for NHS CHC has gone through
every possible stage of appeal and
has been upheld.”By Sarah O’GradyMum sold her home to pay £200,000 for care
WIDOW Lily Capell lost every-
thing she had spent a lifetime sav-
ing for when she was forced to sell
her home and use the £211,000 it
raised to pay for her care.
NHS West Suffolk Clinical
Commissioning Group refused
her application for continuing
healthcare although she met vital
criteria to qualify.
Daughter Shirley Lesiak, 63,
gave up work as a travel agent to
care for her mother before she
was moved to a £800-a-week care
home in Sudbury, Suffolk, in
2010.
She said: “My mum scored
“severe” on two of the 11 criteria
needed to get the extra healthcare
so had a fighting chance to keep
the home she and Dad loved.
“She scored ‘high’ on three
other criteria and ‘moderate’ on
the others. She had enough points
to qualify but then the social
care experts had a meeting and
changed the criteria.
“It was awful, underhand and
unfair. The system is fixed.” MrsLily Capell, aged 19, and the beloved house she was forced to sellLily Capell, centre,
surrounded by
family on her 90th
birthday. Shirley is
on her righttheir loved one’s rights to be rec-
ognised and that they have to deal
with a care system that is incredi-
bly complex and opaque.”
Ms Abrahams pointed to the
German system where if an elderly
person develops a need for care
the basics are paid for.
There is a single national assess-
ment and because those in charge
of delivering care locally are dif-
ferent from the assessors, there is
no pressure to minimise the num-
bers of successful claims.
That means there’s no possibility
of a “dementia tax” and no argu-ments about whether it is down to
the NHS or the local council to
pick up the tab.
Jane Ashcroft is chief executive
of Anchor Hanover, England’s
largest not-for-profit provider of
care and housing for older people.Ms Ashcroft described the fund-
ing scandal as “appalling”.
“The impact this has on older
people and their families’ lives is
shocking and unacceptable,” she
said. The fact that older people andtheir families have had to spend
almost £15billion on dementia
care in the two years since the
Government promised reform is
unjust.
“A sustainable funding solution
for the social care sector must
urgently be found. A cap on social
care costs should be strongly con-
sidered as one of the solutions.”
A Department of Health and
Social Care spokesperson said:
“People with dementia who need
social care should not have to pay
more than they can reasonably
afford. We introduced reformsaimed at preventing people being
forced to sell their homes to pay
for care in their lifetime.
“We have given local authorities
access to up to £3.9billion more
dedicated funding for adult social
care this year, with a further
£410million available for adults
and children’s services.”
The spokesperson added: “We
will set out plans to reform the
system at the earliest opportunity
to protect people from high and
unpredictable costs.”OPINION: PAGE 12Appalling