Help with Purple Zest Direct payment arrears!!

Sofia123

Hello,

Hope you're all well this morning. I need a little help in knowing how to deal with Purple Zest care arrears.

My mum who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and mobility issues, had a financial re-assessment last year, and the council decided that she needs to start contributing to her care throughb Direct payments as the mortgage was fully paid. She was assigned to a local care agency and has carers coming in 7 days a week for an hour (including 2 hours of domestic duty on Friday) and 2 hours in the evening on Tuesday and Thursday. Rest of the time, I care for her as I live with her.

We waited for Purple to send an invoice back in January which they never did. I waited until March but there was still no contact from them so therefore contacted our social care worker on duty to ask them to intervene, explaining that my mum would struggle to pay a huge arrears. I was assured they would get back to me but no one did until 6 months later in July, where Purple thrn sent me an email stating that they noticed my mum was not contributing to her payments and was therefore now in arrears of £1,500!

I called Purple Zest to explain that we had been asking for her care invoice since January but no one had got in touch and the Council asked to wait for them instead. My mum is in over £1000 arrears already with her energy bills (on a arrears payment plan), and her council tax has increased from £22/month to £137/month since July as Leicester city council recently started including PIP as an income. That was shock already but now she has to deal with Purple Zest arrears! The best they could offer was a 12 month payment plan to be paid on top of her current carefees which I explained still too high for her and reduced her quality of life. What are her rights and what can we do to reduce the monthly amount on her arrears? Would paring the careplan down to 4 hours a week be better?

Kind Regards