Meals on wheels debt.

[AniaSM]

My mother is in the process of being moved into a nursing home. When I got in tonight there was an intimidating messsage from the meals on wheels service saying I need to get in touch with them because they say mother owes them some money and they want me to pay. Will I have to? Its about �75.00.

[dot.hawkes]

I thought that the local authority paid the person needing the meals the money in advance to pay for the service? Did your Mum also have the personal alarm home monitoring service? that has to be paid to the LA too I think.

[shanx]

well i think that would be nice of you to pay it because it is avolentery service,anda lot of these services are vital for some people, like your mum

[Aprilis]

I doubt very much that they would be able to force you to pay but I agree with shanx, perhaps you should.

[bigmamma]

My step-father has meals-on-wheels and pays weekly to the delivery person through social services . Has your mum perhaps missed payments , or maybe she was unaware . :-)

[jodie73]

Some people take meals on wheels and other services to help the elderly for granted. These services are not totally free they just require a contribution. meals on wheels is good value for what you get.

[jodie73]

Lol!! Triggerhippy. ;-)

[AniaSM]

It was a very strict sounding woman. Quiet scarey.

[jiggy-gb]

I don't mean this to sound funny, but is your Mum able to tell you whether she's had money from the Local Authorities towards paying for her meals? I only ask as you say your Mum is going into a nursing home rather than a care home and her communication may not be so good. Your Mum should have been getting some help with the costs unless she's well off financially in which case it will have been a private arrangement. Either way, if the money is owed it will need to be paid. Get on to social services, they'll probably have a record of who gets what in the area and maybe able to help you.

[AniaSM]

Shes had attendance allowance that she is supposed to use to pay for care and no she can't communicate well enough to tell me.

[jiggy-gb]

In that case your best option might be to get either social services or a solicitor to help you apply for power of attourney over your Mother's finances which will enable you to access any money she has and you can then settles all her bills etc without it coming out of your pocket. If social services aren't already involved in your Mother's case then perhaps you should get in touch with them. They're not the horror story that you read in the papers, and can actually give you a great deal of help and reassurance.