HEALTH bosses have been told to pay almost £89,000 in nursing home bills for a pensioner more than five years after she died.

Chiefs, who at first refused to pay the bill, have now been told they must fork out for the care of a woman at a Blackburn nursing home between April 1996 and October 2000.

It is the latest successful claim by relatives against Blackburn with Darwen NHS Primary Care Trust for cash and comes amid rising calls for pensioners to get a better deal.

Last month the PCT had to pay out £13,765 for the nine months a pensioner spent in a home in 2003 and 2004 after being overruled by an independent review panel. The latest case is set to cost the PCT £88,931.

No details about the woman or her family have been revealed.

The PCT board will be asked to approve the payment today after the independent panel, set by Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority, said it must pay up.

Helen Mallinson, commissioning manager at the PCT, said: "The lady's relatives considered that the unpredictability and instability of the lady's health and the level of care she required should have qualified her for NHS fully funded continuing care.

"The initial panel considering the claim felt that she did not meet the criteria and did not accept the claim.

"The independent review panel considered that the lady did meet the criteria. "

Campaigners have said pensioners were being forced to sell their homes to pay for care which the NHS should be paying for.

They said the treatment should be free if they had a pressing health need.

Bob Simpson, vice- chairman of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum watchdog, which oversees the PCT, said: "When people are having to go into nursing homes the effect can be devastating enough without them having to worry about money.

"People who have been careful all their lives in amassing property or savings are being penalised for being careful and to me that is totally wrong."

Vicky Shepherd, services development manager at Age Concern in Blackburn, said: "Work needs to be done to ensure people are assessed carefully in the first place.

"There needs to be clear and transparent guidance to remove the problem of people having to claim retrospectively."