help needed please, care agency threatening legal action! ��

[moomoo17]

Hi I'm new here,

Thank you in advance for reading. I hope I picked the right area to post this.

I have a problem with my dads care agency or ex agency. After receiving cancer treatment in another country, he returned home and needed rapid response care, this then went onto a few weeks of social care, nobody mentioned payment or anything. Next thing we know, the care agency contact us and threaten us with court and debt recovery action if we ont pay the care fees. He cant afford it, but he does own his own home, so dont know if that makes a difference. But hes been through so much at 86 this is the last thing he needs. Hes worried sick. It wasn't a huge amount of care either, it was 1 call for half hour, I think 5 days a week, to shower him, most of the time theyd be gone after 10 mins of he was too ill to be washed. So we feel really upset on top as the care was very poor, they weren't very nice to him.

We've contacted the care agency and council. Council dont want anymore to do with it. The care agency are very adamant we owe them. We've asked has my dad or one of his children signed an agreement that explained he needed to pay after a certain amount of time, apparently not. But we feel very lost about how to proceed.

Are they right to pursue payment? Do we have any chance of fighting this? It was not explained to any of us this would cost anything. Really dont know what to do, but scared of what they can. Any help asap really appreciated as have until Mon this week to let the agency know our stance.

Thanks very much xx

[ostell]

Re: help needed please, care agency threatening legal action! ��

As a starting point insist on that contract with the signature on.

I'm helping someone that needs care and the firs thing that was produced was a contract that needed a signature.

[moomoo17]

Re: help needed please, care agency threatening legal action! ��

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. We have asked them for the contract and the care agency have said in reply via email that they don't have any contract or documents at all, least not any that have been signed by my dad. So dont know what next step will be .

Ive tried googling this and cant find anything. Impossible situation

[Wylderose]

Re: help needed please, care agency threatening legal action! ��

You may have to a bit of digging to find out who signed for the care.

In my experience when someone receives care from a care agency via the council, a few different departments are involved.

Adult social care - they usually organise the care agency so your dad would at least have had a social worker. They most likely organised the care and if there is a contract they would have organised it and signed for it.

Because these services always come at a cost, the Financial Assessment Team would also have been involved. Your dad may have had a financial assessment to ascertain whether he could afford to pay for this himself or if the social services department should foot the bill.

Take a good look through all the paperwork your dad has, you just might find something from those two departments that would give you the names of people who may have been involved. If you have an authority to disclose and administer his affairs, you should be able to deal directly with the council departments and find the paper trail.

The fact that he has a house should not make any difference as to whether or not he has to pay for his care. That would be down to an assessment of how much he has in disposable income each month. (i.e. Pensions, savings etc).

I would also write to the agency stating that you dispute your father's responsibility for the bill and ask for not only the contract for his care, (whether signed by him or not) and an itemised bill from start of care to end of care to include any payments made in the interim and also who made them.

They may have lost their contract with the council (possibly why the council want nothing more to do with it) and think that as your dad is old and they have a bill to cover, they see him as a soft target. If Social Services contracted them to perform services for your father on their behalf, then I can't see how the care company can hold your dad responsible for the bill - I think any contract they produce will be between the care company and social services.

[moomoo17]

Re: help needed please, care agency threatening legal action! ��

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. We have contacted everyone possible and found the person who sent an invoice recently to my dad, but he never answers his phone or email. There apparently is no contract according to the care agency. Does this mean they cant legally pursue payment?

Thank you.