I’ll spare you the long story, but in a nutshell one of my caree’s was told (pre-pandemic) that their current care package is too high and needs to be cut back as it’s more than the council would actually pay for a care/nursing home.
Based on figures received from a FOI, this is completely untrue, however I’d like to be able to dispute this with some actual figures from care homes directly.
I know the council gets a kind of “discount” of sorts when organizing packages with care homes, and I’m just wondering if anyone has ever submitted a FOI to a care/nursing home to obtain the self funding and council funded care costs?
If so, would anyone be willing to share with me what questions they submitted and how to properly ask “what discounts do the council get?” haha! Advice on any additional questions to ask would be great too.
I think FOI’ s only apply to public bodies.
Just ring the home and find out what their self funding charge is. Then ring the council to find out what their rate is.
FOI’s apply to public bodies AND to organisations carrying out contracts to meet local authority responsibilities, so it should apply but they can refuse if the information is commercially sensitive.
However, the Local Authority will operate a scale of fees they will pay for different needs: you have every right to request that, and to request which band the authority is saying would apply to your caree.
And that is something they cannot refuse as it is not commercially sensitive.
Sadly, I’ve tried that. They refused to give me any info over the phone and said it needed to be dealt with via a social worker. Who is literally the reason why I’m trying to get the figures independently because I do not trust a word he says anymore.
Thank you for the insight. I’m trying to avoid the LA, or at least the current social worker in question, as he is not above lying and I do not trust anything he claims, so I feel anything that comes from him is likely to be inaccurate.
If you send in a Freedom of Information Act request, it should be addressed to the team dealing with those - you’ll find it on the council website. That bypasses your social worker.
