A Bishopsteignton care home accused of overcharging clients has refused to apologise and issue refunds and has called for the Ombudsman to address unfairness in care home funding.

Moors Park House was investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) after complaints were made that it had imposed additional charges for care.

The LGO was concerned that the additional charges were not detailed in the client’s contract and that other residents had been charged for additional hours without the care home first amending their contracts.

The Ombudsman recommended that Moors Park should: apologise and pay £100 in recognition of the complainant’s time, trouble and frustration; and refund additional fees.

However, Moors Park said its charges were fair and based on client need and stated that contracts allowed for a fee increase if care needs changed. It also suggested that the ombudsman should be addressing ‘the well-publicised cross subsidy by private fee payers of residential and nursing care compared with state funded clients paid via the Local Authority’.

‘The fee for the complainant was increased only after a re-assessment of needs at an annual review,’ said a spokesperson from Crocus Care, which runs Moors Park. ‘They were previously below the 25-hour threshold, and were aware that we charged this way even though they were not subject to it previously.’

‘The Ombudsman has not understood our attempt to charge fairly according to client need and so we did not agree with their view,’ the spokesperson added.

Moors Park had initially agreed to refund the additional fees but subsequently decided not to implement any of the Ombudsman’s recommendations. ‘We provisionally proposed to refund the claimant only, to achieve a resolution to the complaint, but withdrew this as there was an important principle of fairness at stake,’ explained the Crocus Care spokesperson.

‘The Ombudsman has entirely sidestepped our suggestion that it should investigate the unfair monopoly position adopted by local authorities which leads to well published requirements for a cross subsidy from private fee payers in order for providers to be viable. It is this iniquity that leads to providers looking for ways to achieve this whilst also seeking a fair way to calculate fees. This led to our policy of setting a threshold for care and charging an additional amount when this was exceeded so that, as far as possible, those that had the highest needs paid the most and were not being subsidised by those with lighter needs,’ Crocus Care explained.

The LGO stated: ‘We investigate individual complaints and the points that the care provider raises were not the subject of the complaint that came to us. We are not satisfied with what the care provider has done. The evidence shows it decided that the woman needed additional care but there is no evidence to show it first re-assessed her needs. While the care home sent a letter about the increase, the baseline it imposed was not stated in the contract. Because it has not put right the injustice, several residents may have been wrongly charged for their care.’

Last year, a Care Quality Commission report rated Moors Park as ‘inadequate’ for a second time and kept the care home in special measures. Moors Park challenged the report findings and said the CQC is currently considering its request for a review. ‘We believe the overall rating should be Requires Improvement. We continue to work on making improvements to the service with respect to quality assurance,’ commented the Crocus Care spokesperson.