The future of Scotland's flagship elderly care strategy has been thrown into doubt, following a landmark court case. A judge ruled last week that councils were not obliged to pay the care costs of pensioners who had made their own arrangements at private nursing homes. Now, the Scottish Government has been urged to clarify its free personal care policy, offering help, free of charge, to pensioners in need of assistance with tasks such as washing and dressing. Lord Macphail ruled that Argyll and Bute Council was not obliged to pay the care costs of ‘self-funders' – pensioners in private care homes who had made their own arrangements for care. He said: ‘I have concluded it is not possible to interpret (the law) as obliging a local authority to make payments for care which is not provided by them.' He also criticised the Scottish Government for failing to send a representative to court to clarify how the legislation should work. This was echoed by Labour leader, Wendy Alexander, who has written to first minister Alex Salmond asking him to explain why no representative was sent to court and to clarify policy law. A government spokeswoman said the free personal care policy was currently under review by Lord Sutherland, who chaired the Royal Commission which paved the way for the introduction of the policy in 2002. But she claimed the Government was still ‘committed' to free personal care. However, umbrella Scottish council body COSLA said the court case had left questions unanswered. COSLA President Cllr Pat Watters said: ‘We still need to clarify whether free personal care is a needs-based, demand-led policy or whether local authorities can make resource based decisions about the affordability of care.'
