HSE overcharged pensioner €3,000

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) acted illegally in including the income of a spouse of a long-stay patient when calculating nursing home fees, the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, revealed yesterday.

The Ombudsman’s Office that led the way in establishing that health boards had been unjustly overcharging long stay public patients for many years, has now discovered the 2005 National Guidelines on Long Stay Charges are out of line with the regulations.

The Department of Health, which accepts Ms O’Reilly’s conclusions, has informed the Ombudsman that it now intends issuing revised regulations to the HSE.