New measures to ensure care home residents benefit from free nursing care have been announced by health minister Jacqui Smith.
The measures have been introduced to ensure that care home providers do not take advantage of NHS-funded nursing care by raising fees.
They include an amendment to care home regulations so that homes must provide a breakdown of their fees for residents to see which parts of their fees relate to nursing care and which to residential care, as well as a core contract that NHS bodies should use to let care homes know how to handle the NHS nursing contributions they receive.
Smith said: "It is wrong to have singled out residents who were previously paying for their nursing care and who from 1 October last year should have benefited from fee reductions.
"These new measures will ensure that residents and their families receive comprehensive information about what their fees are paying for," she said.
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