Retired Detective Inspector Peter Ireland (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Even though he can do very little for himself and needs 24 hour care, seven days a week, Detective Inspector Ireland has had repeated pleas for help rejected by his local Surrey Heartlands Clinical Commissioning Group. The only way the retired detective inspector can survive is by paying a live-in carer from Thailand £1,500 a month from his pension. Another £500 goes on food and bills which uses up his whole income.
The father-of-two suffered a life changing spinal bleed and a bleed to his brain which paralysed him in 2017.
Since then he has fought for his right to free NHS care, a fight backed up by numerous medical reports from his doctors which say his condition is so severe it meets all the necessary qualifying criteria.
“The last few years have put an enormous strain on me and my family,” he said. “Can you believe it, even though I’m paralysed and can’t move my legs, the assessors from Surrey Heartlands CCG said I could.
“If it wasn’t so stressful a situation, it would be laughable. I wish I could move my legs, get up and walk.
“I’m now using all my pension paying a live-in carer from Thailand £1,500 a month to care for me. There is very little left over. I pay on top of that all the extra food and utility bills.
“My local council won’t help unless I go into a care home, which would be extortionately expensive every week and they would expect me to sell my home to pay for it.
“They did send round a carer when I came out of hospital, but he was a drug dealer. He was charged and banged up. They then sent me a bill for £5,000 which I refused to pay.
“I have examined the whole NHS Continuing Healthcare process in great detail and it is not fit for purpose.
“The misery and heartache caused by the wilful misinterpretation of the continuing healthcare policy by people who are not usually medically qualified is awful. There is no excuse for it.”
Detective Inspector Ireland, who is divorced, has applied twice for NHS Continuing Healthcare and has been turned down.
Two appeals have also been unsuccessful and last Thursday Detective Inspector Ireland, who lives in Lingfield, Surrey was told by Surrey Heartlands CCG that a local resolution meeting will not go ahead.
NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) is free healthcare provided outside of hospital that is arranged and funded by the NHS.
If the eligibility criteria are met, the provision of CHC is a legal entitlement and is not discretionary, or subject to affordability.
But 2015, as many as 50,000 people have been unlawfully denied NHS CHC funding.
And despite an aging population, overall CHC eligibility numbers have plummeted over the same time period.
The NHS’s own figures show the number of people who become eligible for the NHS CHC has fallen quarter on quarter.
In 2016-20/17, 57,773 people were eligible for NHS CHC.
But by Q2 20/21 the number of successful applicants plummeted to 46,760.
If Fast Track funding – given to people at the end of their lives – is excluded, as of March 2017 around 40,000 people were receiving “standard CHC” yet three years later, that number had reduced by almost a quarter to 30,000.
This has seen many pensioners forced to sell their homes to pay for NHS care which is supposed to be free at the point of use – and a system they have spent decades supporting with their taxes.
There is also a “postcode lottery” of significant and unexplained variations in the number of successful applications from CCGs in different parts of the UK.
The number of people that were assessed as eligible for CHC ranged from 28 to 356 people per 50,000 of population in different areas of the country in 2015−16.
Caroline Abrahams, from Age UK, said: “Continuing Healthcare is really important because it meets the needs of some of the sickest and most vulnerable people in our society. But we know it is beset with problems.
“One is that it is designed in a way that screens out too many people who have a legitimate case for support, including some living with advanced dementia.
“Another is that it is” grossly underfunded, leading to local rationing that deprives older eople of their rights and forcing them and their families to pay huge care bills that ought to be picked up by the state.
“Families sometimes battle for years to get justice when all they ever wanted was for their loved one to receive the high quality care and support they needed.”
Specialist NHS CHC lawyer David Steene, of Steene Law, said: “We have all become used to medical care being free at the point of need.
“This sadly is not true when it comes to the artificial line between what is medical care and what is social care.
“And dry statistics do not tell the story of the thousands of people who have lost literally everything to fund care.
“We often get calls from individuals who have sold their home and have spent in excess of £250,000 funding care, but as can be seen, Continuing Healthcare is being rationed. “
A spokesman for Surrey Heartlands Clinical Commissioning Group said: “We are not able to comment on individual cases.
“We can confirm that the CCG’s Continuing Healthcare (CHC) team conform to the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS funded-nursing Care October 2018.”
How to help
The Daily Express is urging people to fight back against an injustice which sees sick patients denied their right to free universal NHS care.
Rear Admiral Philip Mathias is spearheading the campaign.
He said: “This is the biggest public scandal of modern times and a donation from Daily Express readers towards the costs of this legal action will significantly increase the chances of successfully holding the Government to account.”
How to donate – Go here.
