Victory for elderly

Councils Must Pay for Upkeep of the Elderly

Lord Woolf, the Master of the Rolls, ruled that local authorities have to provide for all the costs of the elderly in their care when they have less than £10,000 in savings.

The charities Help the Aged and Age Concern brought the test case after a local council made an 87-year-old pensioner pay for her own nursing home care until her savings dropped below £1,500, the cost of a funeral.

The ruling overturned a decision in the High Court in favour of Sefton Council on Merseyside which allowed them to avoid paying for residential or nursing care for the elderly because of their own limited resources.

Charlotte Blanchard: relieved by decision

The case centred on the plight of Charlotte Blanchard who was forced by Sefton to pay for her own nursing home care until her savings dropped below £1,500. But the decision has implications for the 170,000 elderly in council-run homes throughout the UK.

The council agreed to repay Mrs Blanchard the £8,500 she had spent on her care from her own savings but this was suspended by the appeal judges pending an application to the House of Lords for leave to appeal.

Lord Woolf, in his ruling, said both sides in the action acknowledged this was a test case "of considerable significance for both elderly members of the community and local authorities".

In the November Budget of 1995, the Government announced that when individuals' capital fell below £10,000, local authorities were legally obliged to step in and pay for a person's care in a residential or nursing home.