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Care joy after 14-month wait

From the archive, first published Wednesday 22nd Nov 2006.

A MAN who is fighting to force a health authority to pay for his sick brother's care has been told he can have a mental health assessment - after a 14-month wait.

Stephen Johnson, of Strawberry Lane, Acton Bridge, says the Central and Eastern Cheshire Primary Care Trust is using delay tactics in his fight to have an independent review on his brother Rod's case.

Rod, 53, had a massive stroke on May 24 last year.

He was treated in Warrington Hospital and transferred to Northwich on September 7.

He then moved to Redwalls Nursing Home, Sandiway, on March 10 where he is being looked after.

Rod is paying for this himself because the authority refuses to foot the bill.

Under the current system, the NHS will meet all costs of long term care if it is deemed to be for medical reasons but, if it is considered social care, the costs are means tested with the patient expected to pay for some or all of their care costs.

Stephen said a mental health assessment was suggested in September 2005.

He enquired again in June this year and it was suggested he go to his doctor, who sent a letter back to the person who had sent him to the GP in the first place.

Stephen said: "Round in circles we go. We now actually have a date, which is Thursday, more than a year since the mental health issue was mentioned. It seems to be endless and deliberate delay, procrastination, prevarication and sheer bloody-minded intransigence."

Rod is in consistent pain and to treat it he has to go to the pain clinic at Leighton Hospital, as they don't do home visits.

To get there he has to be carried on a stretcher to an ambulance and accompanied by a nurse, which causes a lot of discomfort for him.

Stephen said: "According to the NHS, this man is stable, predictable and his main need is not a health need but a social need. I have never heard such rubbish in all my life."