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Southern Trust headquarters. Photo by Dean Molyneaux, Wikicommons
A HEALTH trust has been forced to pay back more than £75,000 to scores of vulnerable residents after it overcharged them for utility bills for years, The Detail can reveal.
The Southern Health and Social Care Trust apologised last year after it overcharged adults with a learning disability who were staying in the trust’s eight supported living facilities.
The residents were charged in full for all fuel and heating bills, even though trust staff members also used the utilities.
Around 85 people in eight facilities across counties Down, Tyrone and Armagh were overcharged for several years - a practice branded “potential financial abuse” by a regulator.
In one facility alone - Granville Manor in Dungannon, Co Tyrone - residents were overcharged by more than £27,400, new figures released following a Freedom of Information request show.
The Detail repeatedly asked the trust when the practice began and when it ended.
The trust has now said it began overcharging residents in April 2017.
It did not say directly when the practice ended.
However, it began contributing to utility charges across the eight sites in July 2022.
Residents have now been handed back a total of £75,213.89.
The facilities include Ardaveen in Bessbrook, Co Armagh; Bowen’s Close in Lurgan, Co Armagh; Glanree in Newry, Co Down; Granville Manor in Dungannon, Co Tyrone; Lilburn Hall in Lurgan, Co Armagh; Orchard House in Loughgall, Co Armagh; Shanlieve in Kilkeel, Co Down, and Teach Sona in Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh.
A spokesman from the trust said: “The process to reimburse service users for overpayment of utility bills has been completed and all the tenants have been reimbursed.
“The trust has been contributing to utility charges across all eight facilities since July 2022.”
In facilities where staff also live part-time, health trusts must contribute to bills.
Concerns were first raised during a Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) inspection of Granville Manor in April 2022.
The inspection revealed that “information was provided which identified potential inappropriate charges to service users for utility bills, such as oil and electric”.
“The inspector was advised that service users were charged for the dwelling used by members of staff,” the inspection report read.
The report noted that “this was an inappropriate charge to service users and the practice had been previously identified by RQIA as potential financial abuse”.