NHS apologises for long delays as care home fee claims are finally processed

HEALTH chiefs are finally acting to tackle a backlog of hundreds of claims from families to reclaim care home fees.

NHS officials in North Yorkshire have set aside as much as £12.9m to cover bills for fees dating back as long ago as 2004 which should have been met by taxpayers.

A total of 900 claims were received by October 2012 in the county. Some 600 now remain to be assessed in a contract worth up to £600,000 which is being put out to tender in a process which it is predicted might not be completed for another two years.

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The move follows criticism from solicitors representing claimants about lengthy delays in carrying out assessments, which are likely to leave taxpayers with hefty bills for interest payments.

Janet Probert, director of the Partnership Commissioning Unit for the NHS in North Yorkshire, said: “When the Department of Health announced the deadline for people wishing to claim backdated NHS continuing healthcare funding, the number of unprocessed claims for North Yorkshire and York patients increased significantly to 900.

“Since this time we have been working with limited resources to investigate and process these claims and we now have 600 claims outstanding.

“To help accelerate the processing of these outstanding claims we are currently securing extra resources which we expect to be in place by April 2014.

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“I would like to apologise to patients and families who have experienced a delay in their claim being processed, but also offer reassurance that we are doing everything we can to make improvements and ensure that claims are processed as quickly as possible.”

A total of £110m has been set aside by the NHS across Yorkshire to cover the cost of retrospective claims which could total more than £1bn in England.

More than 5,000 applications for retrospective claims have been received in the region. Some families could receive six-figure awards after wrongly picking up bills for sick relatives.

The biggest liabilities per head are estimated to be in Rotherham where as much as £11.8m could be owing to around 300 families.

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NHS continuing healthcare is free where sick individuals primarily have long-term health needs including funding of care home fees.

However, past failures to carry out effective assessments prompted a retrospective review.