Council's care home fees decision delay criticised

A local authority has been told to apologise after a woman was left unable to return to a care home for financial reasons following a hospital stay.

Kirklees Council failed to make "timely decisions" and left it "too long" to decide whether or not the woman should pay for her own accommodation, an inquiry by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found.

After staying in hospital for 12 days, the woman, who has not been named, moved to a different care home, where she died three weeks later, a report by the ombudsman said.

Kirklees Council said it "fully accepted" the ruling.

According to the ombudsman's report, the woman was first admitted to the care home after her son, with whom she had lived up until then, died unexpectedly in 2023.

Having paid for the first few weeks of her stay herself, the woman's daughter contacted Kirklees Council on her behalf to say she needed help funding her arrangements because her savings had fallen below the threshold where individuals have to pay for their own social care.

However, after the woman received an "overdue reminder" from the care home to pay her fees, the council insisted that "no decision had been made", adding that it would not pay for her accommodation up until that point.

The home later gave the woman 28 days notice to leave, saying it was unable to continue to care for her without payment.

It added that it "had not received any confirmation of payments from the council or the funding arrangements going forward".

Two days before she was due to have to leave the home she was admitted to hospital, and upon recovering she was not accepted back at the home, the report said.

After staying in hospital for 12 days, she moved to a different care home, where she died three weeks later.

The ombudsman ruled that Kirklees Council took "too long" to make its financial assessment, given the situation the woman faced.

It also said the authority gave "conflicting information" about how it treated the money the woman was due to inherit from her late son.

The regulator told the council to apologise to the woman's daughter and pay her £300, as well as ensuring it had covered all the care home's fees.

A spokesperson for Kirklees Council said: "We fully accept the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's rulings in this case. We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Mrs X's family for any distress caused by the failures identified in the ruling.

"We have begun implementing the actions outlined in the report and are putting in place measures to make sure we can respond quickly and efficiently to all requests for financial support in future."

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