Home care charges lottery

High costs mean Wendy Plues' son is her principal carer

By the BBC's John Egan

When it comes to paying for home help, what you're charged is a real postcode lottery. The cost of essential care paid for by the elderly and disabled varies enormously from one local authority to another.

According to the Audit Commission, some councils charge nothing at all while others charge between £100-£200 a week for exactly the same level of home care.

Wendy Plues, aged 32, from Woking in Surrey has been a permanent wheelchair user for the past seven years.

She suffers from Rheumatic Joint Hypermobility Syndrome and Fibre Myalgia which means she's in severe pain all day every day.

Mrs Plues' illness means she cannot do many of the basic things that most people take for granted like dressing herself or even making a cup of tea.

Wendy Plues: "It's a real injustice"

Surrey County Council provides Mrs Plues with 45 minutes of homecare every morning which helps her to get washed and dressed.

She used to pay a contribution of £1.15 for this, but the charge was recently increased to £32.

Mrs Plues, who lives on income support of £115 a week, just couldn't afford to pay more than a quarter of her weekly budget on home care.

It's like a tax on disability. It's a real injustice

Wendy Plues

"It's like a tax on disability, it's a real injustice," she says.

"If people have had an operation and need a district nurse to call on them when they come out of hospital, they don't get charged for that service."

Because of the increased charges, Mrs Plues stopped going to her daycare centre and cancelled the home help she used to get in the evenings. Now her principal carer is her six year old son Joel.

"I help my mum by getting her undressed at night time, and then in the morning, if her carer doesn't come to get her washed and dressed, I do it" explains Joel.

The elderly are the main recipients of home care

About half a million people receive homecare in England and Wales.

The vast majority are pensioners like 87 year old Ethel Longton from Blackpool. Ethel gets 19 hours of homecare a week for which she paid £14 pounds. Recently she got a letter saying the charges had been raised to £117 a week.

Her daughter Anne Dennett could hardly believe her eyes.

"We thought it was a typing error. It would be cheaper for my mother to go into residential care. I just feel that the elderly are being victimised for staying in their own homes", says Mrs Dennett.

Dr Finbarr Martin, of the British Geriatrics Society believes that its a national disgrace that needy people are being disenfranchised and denied personal care in their homes which he says they have every right to expect from the National Health Service.

More than a year after the Royal Commission on Long Term Care recommended that the type of close personal care given to Wendy Plues and Ethel Longton should be funded through taxation, the Government has yet to respond.

The Minister of State at the Department of Health, John Hutton MP says that a detailed response to the Royal Commission's proposals will be published next month.

"We will be issuing new guidance to local authorities which will end the lottery in charging for care charges. This will allow people to get the support services they need in a fair and consistent way right across the county" said Mr. Hutton.