Legal system could be "swamped" with care home fees cases, warns Saga

There is every danger that the social care and legal systems could be “swamped with costly and time-consuming claims and challenges” over local authority payments to care home providers, over-50s group Saga has warned.

The comments from Saga’s Director-General, Dr Ros Altmann, come after last week’s ruling in the Sefton Council case, where His Honour Judge Raynor QC concluded that the authority’s decision to freeze fees for a second year was unlawful.

Dr Altmann said:
"Until the Government properly recognises the need to fund social care properly, these challenges will keep coming and local authorities will remain under pressure. Consider this: A hospital bed costs around £2,000 a week. A week's social care whether in a care home or domiciliary costs between £400 and £700 depending upon needs and location.

"We have to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: in the space of just a few days a number of local authorities have been told that cutting or freezing budgets to spend on the most vulnerable in our society is unlawful. This leaves all councils with a huge problem and will potentially leave local authority budgets in chaos.”

Acknowledging that local authorities had been forced into this position because of cutbacks and austerity measures, Saga’s Director-General said councils were in a very difficult position. But she added that the victims were the people least able to fend for themselves.

Dr Altmann said Saga was aware of further impending legal challenges and court cases. She called on government and policymakers to move social care funding issue needs “swiftly to the top of the agenda".

"The cases and judgments this week are individual victories, but they are also precedents for other claims and challenges,” she said. “That means there is now every danger that the social care and legal systems could well be swamped with costly and time-consuming claims and challenges.”

Saga’s Director-General said the key was unlocking and unblocking the social care system with proper investment and commitment, releasing NHS beds by taking the elderly and vulnerable out of hospitals and back into the community, and saving billions of pounds.

She added: “The sooner we grasp this nettle with proper radical reform, the better. Social care must be valued more highly - since it can be just as life-threatening to withhold social care from those who need it, as it would be to withhold medical care."