Care funding claims to cost £8m

Mr Thompson is one of the thousands of claimants

Health bosses in the Thames Valley say they expect to pay out nearly £8m to families who were charged for nursing care.

About 3,000 cases are currently being looked at as part of a national review of how home care has been funded.

That number is expected to rise, causing fears that the final pay-out may actually spiral beyond the £8m mark.

Age Concern in Berkshire has had to take on extra staff to deal with the number of claims it is helping people to make.

Mr Williams is helping many relatives make claims

Age Concern's Ray Williams said: "The largest one in terms of sums of money that I have been involved with so far - and we have only really just started on this - is probably around a quarter of a million pounds for one family and it goes right down to maybe a few hundred pounds."

The government has said it will give the local health authorities the £8m needed to meet the claims.

One of the claimants is David Thompson, whose wife Sue has to find £800 a week to pay for his Maidenhead care home.

Mrs Thompson said: "I have to cram in my work because I have to work to pay the mortgage and the bills and to pay a lot of the home costs.

Care costs can run into tens of thousands of pounds

"Then I have to travel half-an-hour to visit David and I am with him as much as I can be.

"It's very stressful."

Earlier this year, the Royal Commission attacked Department of Health guidelines on care, saying they were arbitrary and led to "anomalies and injustices".

The Health Service Ombudsman also criticised how health authorities were applying government policy on funding long-term care.

That report led to the thousands of elderly people and their relatives challenging decisions which denied them funding for care costs in the past.