CAMPAIGNERS fighting for the right to free nursing home care are holding a public meeting in Newport later this month.

Union Nacods, which has already battled successfully for compensation for thousands of former miners, now hopes to do the same for another vulnerable sector of society.

It claims tens of thousands of people across the UK are being wrongly charged for places in nursing homes, which should be provided free as "continuing care" by the NHS.

Although the Court of Appeal has ruled the health service must pay when a person's primary need is a health need, Nacods general secretary, Bleddyn Hancock, claims patients need to be at "death's door" before costs are met from the public purse.

Mr Hancock and representatives from the union's solicitors, Hugh James, will be available for questioning at the public meeting in the Castle Rooms, Newport Centre, at 6.30pm on September 27.

"This is a case where people have been swindled out of their savings, hounded out of their homes and conned out of the free care they deserve," said Mr Hancock.

"The government should urgently look to reimburse those people they have wrongly charged."