By Rachel Williams Pressure is growing on the Government to state its position on the future of long...
By Rachel Williams
Pressure is growing on the Government to state its position on the future of long term care funding after a court case gave a resident of a local health authority nursing home the right to care
for life.
Pamela Coughlan won the right to care for life in a health service nursing home after taking her
case against North East Devon Health Authority to the Appeal Court. This came after the health authority's decision to close the Mardon House NHS home where she had been resident since 1993.
Despite being promised a 'home for life', Coughlan was told along with two other residents that she would be moved to a home run by the Social Services. Here she would be means-tested for help and accommodation, resulting in a shift of care responsibilities from the NHS to the local authorities Social Services department.
This case has increased pressure on the Government to act on the recent Royal Commission's recommendations.
Philip Hammond, MP and shadow Health Minister, said: "In opposition, Labour said that it would deal as a matter of urgency with the problem of long term care funding. Once in power, it used the Royal Commission to delay any decision for two years, and now it is delaying again.
"The Government supported the North and East Devon Health Authority's efforts in overturning the original judgement in this
case - it must now state clearly whether this means that it has rejected the Royal Commission's recommendations on the financing of long term care for the elderly."
Since the Royal Commission's report more than three months ago there has been no official response from the Government over any future long term care policy. The report recommended universal free nursing care and charges for care accommodation to those who can afford it.
During the Coughlan case, the counsel representing the North East Devon Health Authority claimed the provision of long term care under the NHS could cost many millions of pounds.
The Appeal Court judges, headed by Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf, stated the closure of Mardon House was "an unjustified breach of a clear promise which constituted unfairness amounting to an abuse of power and a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights".
Since Coughlan was in receipt of specialist rather than general nursing care at Mardon House, her care was provided free of charge under the NHS. This formed the critical issue of the case, whether the long term care of a chronically ill patient should be provided free of charge through the NHS or locally through social services where the individual is subject to means testing.
But Coughlan was found to be an extreme case since the Court stated that the NHS was still within its right to transfer general care to social services.
"There are still many people facing care needs who will be forced to undergo means testing and find themselves paying for care," said Sandy Johnstone, long term care strategy manager at CGU.
He added: "From an insurance point of view, this case has reminded the public that free care is not provided automatically and that whatever the Royal Commission recommended, none of it has come to pass.
"The only margin of doubt is for those, like Coughlan, in need of extreme specialist care."
