West Sussex County Council To Compensate Woman Over High Care Bill

Wednesday, 12 February 2025 12:27

By Karen Dunn - LDRS

A woman left ‘shocked’ by a large care bill has been paid £250 by West Sussex County Council.

The woman – known as Mrs X – who has cancer, complained to the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman that the council had taken too long to carry out a financial assessment which decided how much she should pay, charged her for care she didn’t receive, and failed to review her care plan after 13 weeks.

She also claimed the council had not told her that she would have to pay some of the cost of her care.

While the ombudsman ruled that the council had, in fact, told Mrs X that she would have to pay something, at no point was she told how much this was likely to be.

The report said:

“There is no evidence the council provided copies of the leaflets it has about care costs. Nor that it signposted Mrs X to the information on its website about this.

“Mrs X had just received a cancer diagnosis. She was distressed and getting a lot of new information at that time. It is understandable that she may not remember the conversations or have taken in the information properly.

“The council should consider providing copies of its clear written information alongside the ‘agreement to pay a charge’ form.”

The ombudsman found the council to be at fault for taking 15 months to complete its financial assessment of Mrs X, denying her the chance to make informed choices about her care.

The latter point would have resulted in a much less shocking bill – and the ombudsman felt that, based on her care records, Mrs X would have reduced the help she was receiving.

It was agreed that the council would apologise to her and pay her £250 in recognition of the ‘avoidable distress caused by receiving a large and unexpected bill’.

The authority also agreed to recalculate the bill, with no charges for care received after September 21 2023.

A council spokesman said:

“We accept the ombudsman’s findings that we were at fault in the way we reviewed and changed a care plan. We have apologised and agreed to a financial remedy in recognition of the uncertainty and distress caused.

“We are committed to improving our processes to prevent such delays in the future.”