Reclaim care home fees paid since April 2012

Can you reclaim care home fees?

You can if two things are true. The person should have been considered for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) at the time and wasn't. And they paid for that care, in full or in part. The guidance calls this a request to assess a previously unassessed period of care. You make it to the ICB, the NHS body that decides CHC funding for its area.

CHC is a package of care arranged and paid for in full by the NHS, for adults whose main needs are health needs. Money plays no part in the decision. Savings and the value of a home make no difference to whether someone qualifies. Our guide to the CHC eligibility criteria explains what the NHS looks for.

Signs a claim may be worth checking

• They lived in a care home with nursing and got NHS-funded Nursing Care (FNC), a fixed weekly NHS payment towards nursing costs. But nobody checked whether they qualified for CHC first.
• They had advanced dementia, with behaviour that put themselves or others at risk or needed skilled staff to manage it.
• They needed skilled help with breathing, swallowing, pressure sores or medication that a nurse had to give and watch closely.
• They fell often, couldn't move without help, or their needs changed from day to day.
• Their health was getting worse quickly towards the end of their life.
• There's no record of a CHC Checklist ever being done.

None of these settles it on its own. The National Framework, the written rules for CHC in England, says a diagnosis doesn't decide eligibility. Neither does the place where the care was given. What counts is the person's day-to-day needs, taken together.

Why many families don't know they can claim

The National Framework says that in all cases, a person should be considered for CHC before any decision about FNC. But CHC isn't always raised when someone moves into a care home or starts paying for care. So some families only hear about it after the fees have been paid, sometimes while sorting out an estate. Our guide to who pays for care home fees explains how CHC, FNC and council funding fit together.

How far back can you claim back care home fees?

Claims can usually cover care from 1 April 2012 onwards. The government guidance says ICBs should generally only consider care from that date. Earlier periods are looked at only in exceptional circumstances, which the guidance expects to be rare.

The guidance doesn't set a deadline for asking. It's still worth starting soon, because a claim depends on what the records show. Records can be harder to get as the years pass. Our guide to retrospective CHC claims sets out the rules in more detail if you'd like to read them yourself.

Reclaiming care home fees after a death

You can still make a claim after the person has died. The claim is made for their estate, so whoever makes it needs to show they're entitled to act, usually as the executor or administrator. The guidance gives 8 weeks to send that proof, such as the grant of probate or letters of administration. The ICB can allow longer in exceptional circumstances.

We know this often comes when you're already dealing with a lot. We'll handle the letters and the forms. We'll only come to you for things that need your signature, or your memory of how your relative was.

What we do on a past fees claim

One person runs your claim, from the first conversation to the final letter.

• We talk it through with you first.
• We write to the ICB, help you with the forms and the proof that you can act, and track every time limit.
• We read the care records for each period and match the evidence to the areas of need the NHS assesses.
• We write your comments on the needs portrayal document, pointing to the records that show the person's needs.
• If the ICB says no, we ask it to look again at no extra cost. Going further, to NHS England's Independent Review Panel or the Ombudsman, is our choice, and if we take it on it's still no win no fee. Our page on challenging a CHC decision explains the stages.

We're a small team and we work in England only. We don't have a nurse or doctor on staff. For complex claims we can buy in a clinical opinion, and we pay for it. We're not part of the NHS, and we're not solicitors, so any court action would need one. If you'd like a fuller opinion before you agree to anything, a CHC case review gives you one.

How our price compares

We run a competing service. Here's how some others charge for this kind of claim, with where each figure came from.

Hugh James, a law firm, takes 25% plus VAT of the money recovered if a retrospective claim succeeds. That's from its nursing care fee recovery page, read 13 November 2026. With VAT at 20%, that's 30% of what comes back, or £9,000 on £30,000, where our fee would be £6,000. It also offers an hourly rate of £200 plus VAT, payable win or lose, and says a typical case takes 40 to 60 hours.

Beacon CHC charges a fixed fee for each stage of a claim for past care, after a free first stage. It doesn't publish those fees (Beacon's fees page, read 12 November 2026). Compass CHC works on fixed fees and doesn't take a percentage of money recovered. Its FAQ page Is Compass CHC a law firm? says so (read 13 November 2026).

With a fixed fee, you pay for the work whatever the result.