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Care home providers pocket millions as they continue to charge sick residents £700 a week when they are in hospital

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Sick care home residents are being deprived of £700 a week for rooms and services they do not use because they are in hospital.

These vulnerable elderly people are being charged for board, food, laundry services, power, and daily nursing they never received — allowing care home providers to pocket millions of pounds of extra profit.

There are more than 400,000 care home residents in Britain. Official NHS figures show more than five million over-65s were admitted to hospital last year, spending an average of ten days bed-ridden. And 80,000 stayed longer than a month.

Though there are no figures showing how many of these are care home residents, thousands will be.

But few care home providers will give these residents a refund when they are forced to spend weeks in hospital.

And even when residents do ask for a reduction in charges, it is often not given.

‘People who are in hospital should only have to pay for an accommodation retainer,’ says Martin Green, chief executive of the Elderly Accommodation Council.

‘Unfortunately, care providers include everything in one set price. There has to be a debate over categorising each element of the cost — then it would be easier to say which services you are still getting and those you are not.’

A spokesman for the charity Age UK says: ‘You need to seek advice from the care home manager if you’re in hospital for a long time. It is all down to their discretion.’

Elderly people shelled out £8.7 billion  from their life savings to pay for care last year — £380 million more than in 2010, according to Age UK.

  More... Elderly long-term care home costs: How to afford it

A government-commissioned study found one in ten OAPs in care spends more than £100,000 in fees. Bills are allowed to rocket because the state offers funding only to those with less than £23,500 in savings or equity in their home.

In a short time, the £37,000-a- year average nursing home fee can run through a pensioner’s life savings, and an estimated 20,000 people a year are forced to sell their old house.

Private care spending is expected to rise another £2.2 billion a year by 2015 and the industry is rubbing its hands.

When care home residents go into hospital, most do not expect a full refund for their fees. They understand that rent should still be paid, as well as a minimal service charge.

But many homes still demand residents to pay the full  cost, including meals and treatments, even if they never receive any.

When elderly widow Pamela Smith was given a place at Green-acres care home in Surrey two years ago, it seemed like a gift from above.

Her son Steve, a married father of two, knew her stay would be expensive, at £3,600 a month,  but it was the right  thing to do.

Anchor, which runs the home and 95 others in England, promised the safe environment Pamela, 77, needed to cope with life-long bipolar disorder — the mental illness afflicting about 700,000 people in Britain, including comic actor Stephen Fry.

But last November, Pamela, suffering badly, was hospitalised for treatment in Epsom, Surrey, for five months. Yet Anchor refused to reduce Pamela’s care home fees. Since November, she has paid more than £18,000 of her life savings on rental costs, food, laundry services, heating, electricity and daily nursing.

Anchor told Pamela to hand in her notice at Greenacres if she wanted to save money.‘Charging £3,600 a month while my mother is in hospital is mercenary,’ says Steve, 49. ‘I understand they have overheads, but while she is away she does not need food or assistance — and gas and electric bills are surely the same if there’s one person or 100.’

When Money Mail challenged Anchor, it agreed to refund Pamela £9,000 and  review its policy for the 40,000 people it serves nationwide.

‘I would like to apologise for any upset this has caused Mrs Smith and her family,’ said Desiree Jooste, Greenacres’ district manager. ‘This is an isolated incident.

‘It is rare for a resident to spend such a long time in hospital and still want to keep their room.

‘We do face significant fixed costs, such as staffing and energy, even if a room is empty. However, we are producing guidance to ensure we apply an appropriate discounted rate in future.’ Anchor is a not-for-profit organisation, but its annual report shows it made a ‘surplus’ of £15.6 million last year.

When Money Mail asked it why it fails to feed this back to hospitalised customers, it said the funds are ‘re-invested to maintain the high standards of our care homes and to build more’.

Many providers, such as Bupa, which runs 300 care homes, have no official fee policy on hospitalisation, but will make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

However, the reduction is often small. For example, Four Seasons Health Care, which runs 500 care homes, reduces fees by just 20 per cent — and only after six weeks.

Barchester Healthcare, which runs 220 homes, charges the full amount as standard.

‘Staffing levels and running expenses of their home remain the same during hospitalisation, and therefore fees still need to be paid to cover these costs,’ it says.

Care experts say frail, elderly people will continue to be ripped off until a set of industry guidelines is drawn up.

And they warn the situation will worsen as the population ages. Life expectancy for those reaching pensionable age hit 84 this year, with the proportion of over-65s set to shoot past 16 million over the next three decades.

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