My late father spent the final period of his life in a nursing home having lapsed into extremely poor health. I applied for CHC funding for him but this was turned down despite his meeting the eligibility criteria cf. Coughlan and Grogan test cases. The CCG involved withheld vital information from the CHC assessment in order to make it appear that my father’s health needs were less severe than they in fact were, and staff shouted me down at the assessment. . Shortly afterwards, he went into a nursing home. Throughout his time in the home, he was denied CHC funding and as a family we were forced to pay several thousand pounds every month in nursing home fees. After he died, the CCG tried to close his CHC file but after a complaint from me to NHS England his case was reopened. At a Local Review Meeting, I was again shouted down by the CHC assessor and falsehoods about me were stated.
Following this debacle, I applied for and was granted a hearing before an IRP (Independent Review panel). In advance of this, I prepared a 700 page file which included nursing home notes, consultants’ and GP notes and documents from other specialists covering the period of his stay in the nursing home and the months prior to this. The documentation clearly indicated eligibility for CHC funding and the evidence clearly shows trhat the CCG has withheld important evidence. . I recorded the IRP hearing with a voice recording device in order to avoid the possibility of any dispute over what was said at the hearing, as the CCG minutes of previous meetings were highly inaccurate and biased. The IRP ignored all my evidence and supported the CCG despite my evidence clearly contradicting CCG claims. The chair of the IRP continually cut me short during the meeting and I was shouted down by a panel member who made clinically incorrect claims. The IRP ruled my father ineligible, despite all the evidence. Its members were CHC assessors from CCGs adjoining the one which denied my father CHC funding, which undermined the stated independence of an IRP. It was shockingly mismanaged.
I now wish to take the CCG to court to recover the monies wrongly paid out by my family in nursing home fees, but every solicitor I have approached wants several thousand pounds up front before they will even look at the case or read a single document. The whole case, following on from years of stress and worry over my father’s health, has been so stressful and frustrating that it has damaged my health; I have had a heart attack and attempted suicide as a result of the problems this has caused. I have spoken to several of the ‘specialist’ solicitors who advertise their services re. CHC funding, but all have demanded several thousand pounds up front. I have not got several thousand pounds to pay up front and so I have no access to justice. I am sure that CCGs calculate that few people have the resources to sue them over CHC fees and so they effectively rob families of their savings and people of their homes in order to evade paying for CHC funding.
I have not given up. Despite my poor health caused by this, I am ready to sue the CCG and more determined than ever to see justice done. The one obstacle is that I am being denied access to justice because I do not have several thousand pounds to spare to pay a firm of solicitors to represent my family. We have c. 6 months to present a case since the IRP decision reached me in April 2019.
There must be a solution to this. I am unwilling to let the CCG get away with what they have done.
Thanks Chris. I have spoken to Care to be Different; they and Farley Dwek are closely connected, and Farley Dwek have informed me that they do not act on behalf of litigants in CHC court cases. They offered to look at my files if I paid them £3, 000 up front though if I wanted to take it to the Ombudsman, which all my research tells me is a waste of time.
Please do update the main thread with my post; I would be delighted if more people could see it.
‘This is like a really bad movie. Have you considered writing a newspaper article about this or not?’
I would happily write a newspaper article, appear on TV or do anything else to publicise what has happened and what this CCG has done if it would help me obtain justice. I have suffered years of unnecessary stress, ill health and hardship thanks to the CCG’s behaviour and the fact that I do not have several thousand pounds to hand to institute legal proceedings against them. I have the evidence of my late father’s eligibility for CHC funding, I have the evidence that the CCG has deliberately withheld evidence and provided misleading evidence and that the entire decision making and appeals process has been monstrously flawed.
Thanks for your suggestions. I have contacted a news agency to see if any of their media clients would be interested in publishing our story and am awaiting further news.
Charles, it should not be YOUR money used to do this, but your father’s, as it relates to his finances, not yours.
Do you have Power of Attorney.
After all, what have you got to lose. Much better to “invest” some money standing up for his rights, than give the money to the nursing home. £2,000 wouldn’t even cover 2 weeks care. When he runs out, then SSD will pay.
It’s too late for that, as my father has died. My only recourse now is to sue the CCG but I am hampered as I do not have several thousand pounds to hand to pay up front for them to review the case.
