As solicitors specialising nationally in healthcare law we are increasingly being instructed to look after the interests of vulnerable elderly family members.

Many of the people we asked to help have impaired mental capacity and are in law incapable of making decisions for themselves.

Unless they had the foresight to put in place beforehand a Power of Attorney this can present the family with real problems as the person concerned cannot manage their own property and finances which in itself can leave them vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous third parties.

Complications can also arise for us in taking instructions to help, for example, pursue an application for NHS Continuing Care funding and in particular Data Protection issues can get in they way of our obtaining copies of records we need to prove entitlement to what is frequently tens of thousands of pounds in care fees.

The only real answer is to have one or more family members or even friends appointed to deal with the person’s affairs by the Court of Protection. The person appointed is named as "Deputy".

The process is quite complicated and drawn out but we can deal with all of the procedure for you. All you need to do is sign the various forms we send you.

If you have a family member who needs this help just contact us and one of our team will be in touch.