Many people spend their last days paying for care

The mining union Nacods claims many thousands of people are wrongly charged for places in nursing homes.

The union will mount legal challenges against local health boards refusing to pay for the nursing care of members.

The Welsh Assembly Government said �5m had already been reimbursed in care costs.

Nacods' South Wales secretary Bleddyn Hancock said people were being "swindled out of their savings, hounded out of their homes and conned out of the free care they deserve," he said.

The union argues that the Court of Appeal has already stated that the NHS must pay when a person's primary need is a health need.

But, Mr Hancock claims, a patient needs to be "at death's door" before the NHS is willing to pay.

The union plans to mount a number of test cases which, if successful, could result in health boards across the UK reviewing the cases of hundreds of thousands of nursing home residents who are being wrongly charged for their care.

Nacods is launching some test cases

Mr Hancock claims that the action could have the same impact as the battle for compensation for miners - which resulted in the largest industrial injury payout in history.

Cases that the union plans to fight include that of Morfydd Jones, an 85-year-old widow from Ystalyfera in Neath Port Talbot.

She requires 24-hour care at a nursing home, after deteriorating health and a series of heart attacks.

Her son, Arwel, said his mother should not be paying her own nursing home fees.

Paid out

"Don't get me wrong - if she won the lottery she wouldn't be able to spend the money because of the state she is in.

"I always remember my father telling me he was paying into his pension because he believed in the system.

They were not earning very much but he started at an early age as an overman in a colliery because he wanted to have it in their retirement."

The family of Glyn Jones, from Ynysybwl, Pontypridd, believe his nursing care should not have had to be paid out of his pension for the last 10 months of his life.

His daughter, Christine Roberts, said he worked in the mining industry all his life, holding senior positions within Nacods.

New guidance

Mr Jones was 72 and suffering from pneumoconiosis, emphysema, and severe bronchitis when in 1999 he suffered a severe stroke which left him partly paralysed.

By October 2003 his health had deteriorated so much that he moved into a nursing home at Trefnant near St Asaph, and later died.

The family was told that, because Mr Jones had assets of more than �20,000, he could not have the nursing home fees paid.

A series of public meetings have also been organised by Nacods across south Wales.

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesman said more than 300 cases have been considered by an independent panel, and over �5m in care costs reimbursed.