LGO raps council for overcharging home care services for 18 months

An investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman has found that a county council overcharged the public for non-residential services for more than 18 months.

A complainant had argued that Kent County Council charged for care services before a financial assessment was made, and that this contravened government guidelines.

The Department of Health guidance, Fairer Charging, states that councils should not charge for a period of care before the council has completed a financial assessment and informed the person in writing of the charge.

In the present case, Ms B had agreed to have home care after a stay in hospital. For the first six weeks, her care was free as it was enablement care.

After a review of Ms B’s care, a social worker recommended a long-term care package, which Kent arranged for an agency to deliver.

The council then applied a provisional charge of £39 per week before completing Ms B’s financial assessment.

In a report, the Ombudsman said: “There is nothing in Fairer Charging which allows councils to apply a provisional charge. If there had been parliamentary intention to allow councils to apply a provisional charge for a temporary period before completing a financial assessment, the guidance would have made this explicit.

“In fact, the guidance says the opposite: people should not receive a bill for a lengthy past period as this causes anxiety.”

Kent has now admitted that other people will have been affected by its provisional charging policy, which was in place from April 2011 to December 2012.

The LGO acknowledged the budgetary pressures faced by Kent but recommended that the council conduct a review of all cases affected and refund any charges that it should not have applied.

The Ombudsman also urged the authority to: withdraw the policy of applying a provisional charge before completing a financial assessment; waive Ms B’s provisional charge of £380; and pay the complainant, her son, £200 for the time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.

Nigel Ellis, Executive Director for Investigations at the LGO, said: “Government policy is clear on the matter of provisional charging for care services – it explicitly states that no charge should be applied before the user has been told about the assessment of those charges. We want to remind other councils of the policy and ensure that they are correctly following guidelines.”

Graham Gibbens, Kent’s cabinet member for adult services and public health, said: “We accept the findings of the LGO report and we have apologised for the poor communication with Ms B about her care package. We introduced the provisional charging policy for home care services in good faith. We believe the government guidance about care charging is unclear.
 
“However, we have now withdrawn provisional charging in response to recommendations by the LGO and have agreed to refund all those affected between April 2011 and December 2012 by this policy.”