Appointee and care home fees issues

Benefits, finances and funding
1

Good evening,

New member here. My mother was placed in care roughly 4 years ago; for the three years prior to that I was begrudgingly her carer while also working.

Some backstory, not sure if it is relevant to the situation; but regardless. I am autistic with ADHD and chronic depression, I had for want of a better term a pretty rough childhood at the hands of my mother.

My mother is/was an alcoholic for most of her adult life post 45 years old, she is now 72 and in the care home due to ARBD.

Her care home fees are funded from her state pension, roughly ÂŁ400 every 2 weeks, leaving about ÂŁ70 (ÂŁ35 a week) as a personal allowance. Some of the personal allowance is being used to pay back a loan I had to take out to pay off fees that went unpaid through no fault of my own.

long story short Barnet Council finance department made several mistakes which meant 3 months went unpaid; then sent me a letter demanding over £2000 in back fees, I made an official complaint which was upheld, but was basically told “Sorry for your inconvenience, but this still needs to be paid”.

I do not have a lasting power of attorney for her as her decline was sudden, literally fine one day then in hospital the day after and having been assessed as lost capacity. I attempted to apply for a deputy-ship but kept hitting brick walls so gave up. I am her appointee but would rather this be dealt with by someone else.

She has/had no savings due to her alcoholism, otherwise the back fees would have been paid from those.

What I am concerned about are I believe top up fees, these things the care home claim my mother needs in addition to her residency, such as haircuts, chiropody etc.

I had an argument recently with the manager about how they are administering these so-called extra needs, in that they are just going ahead with them without letting me know beforehand, for example, the call I received today the manager claimed I “owe them” £300 for these extra’s; he also said my permission was not needed to have these things done.

Dealing with these issues is causing me considerable emotional stress and anxiety and to be frank I’d rather it was taken care of by someone else. I do have a brother but due to physical disabilities he is not fit to take over the responsibility and my mother has no siblings.

What are my options? Can the LA take over as appointee and deal with paying the fee’s etc..?

2

@ANH1971 good evening welcome to the forum, you sound like you are having a difficult time and I am sorry about that. Yes I do believe that the LA can take over as appointee and deal with these things, also the haircuts ,chiropody is that every month you put etc. what are the others. You may be able to stop them. And you pay for them when required and if required not every month.the other people who come will know exactly. I don’t know a lot about care homes. there not something I know a lot about. I have wrote this so people will see my message and come to and reply . @bowlingbun this lady will know all the answers to your other questions.and these to Have a nice evening.

3

Are you saying the council told you that you had to use YOUR money to pay mum’s care home fees? That’s simply not true! How long ago was this? With regard to extras the care home are charging, you need to ask the home for a copy of the information they give to new residents about these. I know Trading Standards were very concerned about things like this. I would also talk to the Care Quality Commission about what the home are doing. Personally I would write to them saying that you will not pay for any extras in future unless agreed in advance. Contact the council and say that you no longer wish to be appointee for mum and ask for their Client Affairs Team to take over.

4

Thank you for the response and information.

I called Barnet Council and spoke to someone regarding appointee responsibility being transferred over to the LA, there was no confirmation this would happen only that they’d need to investigate the claims I made regarding the care homes practices before actioning my request.

I did also e-mail Adult Social Services yesterday evening and laid all this out in an e-mail, which they confirmed has been looked at and passed further up the chain.

With the previous payment issues, the representative I spoke to at the time led me to believe it was something I would need to take care of; I recall I was informed that the finance department would want debts paid ‘within 3 days’ so I was placed in a position where I thought this would need to be paid ASAP, which led me to taking a loan, admittedly I was probably a bit naive here, but unfortunately did not have all the necessary information to hand.

This was roughly a year ago, may have been slightly longer.

1 Like
5

Appointeeship is the responsibility of DWP. Write to them asking to take over as the council were failing to do their duty. Just that, short and sweet.
Then make a Subject Access Request to the council asking for copies of everything they hold on file about mum’s fees and their demands to you, and all your payments. Easy to do, just go to the council’s website, and Search for Adult Social Care Subject Access. They are required to do this within 28 days. I prefer paper copies as then I can highlight things, the old fashioned way. Maybe read up about SAR’s, Subject Access Requests.

6

@ANH1971 good morning .i hope that you are ok and that the sun is shinning where you are.At least you are getting somewhere the council are looking into the practises of the care home, and you have ask them about everything.They probably want to deal with one thing at a time. I don’t know how council work. See what happens. You also wrote an email to adult social services and they have confirmed, they normally have 20 somethings days to reply. If there investigation has not been completed by then, they will write and tell you that they need more time and roughly approximately how long. With reqards to what the person said at the financial team and when you have got all the information bowlingbun has said. Can you also put in a complaint about the loan you took out and the pressure these people put you under.

7

Thank you kindly both for your guidance.

I have written to the DWP requesting that they take over as appointee and have sent a SAR to Barnet Council.

I guess it’s now just a matter of waiting…..

1 Like
8

Sorry, I didn’t phrase what I said very well. DWP are responsible for who is appointee, not acting as appointee themselves. So you need to tell them YOU want to be appointee, not the LA.

9

Make a Subject Access Request to the council asking for copies of everything they hold on file relating to finance for you and your relative. To do this go to the council’s website, search for “Adult Social Care Subject Access Request”. Maybe leave it a week so your recent contacts should be on there too. Many staff forget about SAR requests, or maybe think we don’t know about them!?