Hundreds of elderly people have been forced to sell their homes to pay for nursing care they should be getting for free, it has been claimed. A new campaign has been set up in Neath Port Talbot to try to stop the alleged practice. 

A public meeting has been held to launch a fight-back which could see families trying to reclaim tens of thousands of pounds. "The severity of the issue was brought to my attention by a couple of people in my ward who were moved to care homes and found the local authority was trying to sell their homes to pay for care," said Dyffryn councillor Martyn Peters. "I didn?t realise how often it happened until more research was made. 

"We carried out a rough survey in Neath Port Talbot which estimates that since 1999, over 2,000 homes have been taken illegally from people in care. "When elderly people are in the time of greatest need, they end up being stripped of their hard-earned assets." The Post revealed last week how the family of Swansea Valley pensioner Evan Jones, who paid thousands of pounds in care home fees, will take his case to the High Court to try to get the money back. They say his care should have been provided free by the council. 

And it appears that could be the tip of an iceberg of claims in the pipeline. The meeting at Longford Memorial Hall heard how, with the decline in the number of hospital beds available, more elderly people are being moved out to private care homes, where an average annual bill is £26,000 a year. 

Many people then end up losing their homes as a result, as local authorities sell them to pay the fees, the meeting was told. Bleddyn Hancock from the National Association of Colliery Overmen (Nacods) is supporting the campaign. 

Responsible for securing compensation for the miners, it is hoped his legal expertise will help ensure families are reimbursed. He said: "These days, long-stay hospital patients are shamefully branded as bed blockers. From the chronically to terminally ill. 

"The hospitals want to shunt them out, and when they shunt you out, they say ?well you?re going to have to pay for that?." Every patient being discharged from hospital is entitled to an NHS continuity care assessment. 

Patients should then be evaluated against a strict criteria to see whether they are entitled to nursing care which the NHS should fully fund. But, according to Mr Hancock, even this right is often denied. 

He added: "In my experience, a discharge nurse will ignore that completely. "Instead, they will go straight to a social worker at the council and say, ?we have a bed blocker who needs to be put in a home?. It shouldn?t happen, but it does." 

Anthony Clements, head of community care services at Neath Port Talbot Council, said the matter was currently being looked into. "As a local authority, we want to ensure that where people have continuing health care needs that these are appropriately identified," he said. 

"We are currently working with the local health board to review all patients in nursing home care to identify those individuals who meet the recently revised continuing health care guidance from the Welsh Assembly Government." 

An LHB spokeswoman declined to comment. 

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