Reprieve for woman, 103, facing care home eviction

Esme Collins was told to move out unless she paid an extra £125 a week in fees.

But a Health Minister yesterday told officials to make sure the threat was lifted.

Praising the Daily Mail for highlighting such an 'appalling' case, Ivan Lewis said: "Under normal circumstances I would not and cannot intervene in individual cases. However this is so shocking I feel obliged to act.

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"I have made it clear to the local NHS and local authority that this threat of eviction by the home owner must be lifted immediately.

"Neither Mrs Collins nor her family should be expected to cope with this anxiety for a minute longer.

"I am deeply concerned at the attempt by the home owner to use Mrs Collins as a pawn in a funding dispute.

"Whatever the difficulties such treatment of a 103-year-old cannot be tolerated in a modern care system which has dignity and respect for older people at its heart."

The Mail revealed on Saturday that Mrs Collins had been given 28 days to meet the increase in her fees at the privately-run Abbeymoor nursing home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

Failure to come up with the cash would see her moved to a cheaper nursing home.

Mrs Collins, a mother of one who was widowed in the 1940s, suffers from severe osteoporosis and is bedridden.

Yet officials at the county council claim her needs do not meet the criteria for the fees demanded by the care home.

Her 84-year-old daughter, Esme Simpson, had said moving her would be a "death sentence".

Yesterday she said: "Social services have been to see me and they have told me they are hopeful they will be able to keep her where she is.

"It's still up in the air and nothing definite has been decided yet."

Mrs Collins pays £400 a week out of her state and private pensions for her place in the 35-bed home.

Care Companions Healthcare, which owns the home, claims it needs at least £125 a week more to look after her.

The company said it was "willing to meet all parties to explore any possibility that might allow Esme Collins to remain in the home beyond August 13."

Pressure groups have been lobbying the Government for extra funding for the hundreds of thousands of elderly people in residential homes.

Many of the homes face money problems and one shuts down every day.

Frank Ursell, of the Registered Nursing Home Association condemned Mr Lewis's intervention.

"The Government won't find the money to do something proper about the funding of care in care homes," he said. "It has to be considered a scandal."

He said that although private care home costs were rising by 4 per cent, some of the councils which used their services had frozen their payments.

Mervyn Kohler, of Help the Aged, claimed many care home residents were pressured into paying significant top-up fees.

"The Government has got to take some responsibility for that," he said. "This is one of those silent scandals that needs to be exposed.

"The ageing of the population and our inability to pay for it is something we have known about for at least three decades and we can see that accelerating.

"Are we just going to continue muddling through and penny pinch and treat people in the way we are treating Mrs Collins?"

Earlier this year a report revealed that 1,500 care homes were failing to feed their residents properly.