Alzheimer's is a medical problem

The family of a lady in Worcester, required to sell her house and pay her care fees when Alzheimer's disease required her to be admitted to a nursing home, have set a large problem for the NHS.

The family appealed to the Health Service Ombudsman, and the latter agreed that the original decision of the NHS Trust involved was wrong. They had said that it was a social problem rather than a medical one, and for five years until she died the family paid £130,000. They wrote many letters asking the PCT to reassess her situation, but without avail.

Elderly people must pay for their residential care unless their needs are deemed to be health-related, that is not merely aged related infirmity. Even if bed-ridden, as the lady in Worcester was, and requiring 24 hour care, no financial help is available from the NHS.

The case has enormous ramifications for financing the NHS. Although other trusts may have interpreted the government guidelines in the same way as the Ombudsman, many under financial pressure have given the same assessment as Worcester. There are thus perhaps hundreds of Alzheimer patients and families who will now press their cases, with the result that the NHS nationally may have to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds, or even millions, in financing care and making back payments.