Is mum expected to live on £30 a week, while living in a CH, and not able to go into

[MARYGIL]

Hi, any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Mum went into a CH last July , we have cared for her for 3 1/2 years ago, when Dad passed away. Dad & mum changed their will just over 7 years ago, before mums Alzheimer's diagnosis. Leaving Their share of their property to the children, not each other. Unfortunately we have had to sell mums house to cover the CH, the sale goes through this week. (Gutted!) Mum will be self funding with the proceeds of the house.
Mum still enjoys going out one day a week with adult placement. Since she has been in the CH social services, no longer fund this, so we have been funding it out of her limited savings. The finance person for the LA is now saying if she wants to go family must pay, and it can't come out of her money from house? It costs £55 a week, she is allowed ro keep£30 from her pension??? Is this correct? And does anyone have any experience of this? Was I naive to think this was her money, and could do what she likes with in reason???
Obviously if it is correct, we will fund as a family from our share of proceeds! ( if LA don't come after that) just seems unfair.
Thanks x

 

[Kevinl]

Hi Mary, welcome to TP
I've no idea where the social worker's advise comes from, while she's self funding it's really none of their business what she does with her money.
In the future it may be her savings dwindle and she has to ask the LA to pay her care costs at which point they could look back at how she'd been spending money to ensure she hadn't deliberately "deprived herself of assets" but a few trips on an OAP's day out is hardly a flight on Concorde to New York or a trip on the Orient Express.
The SW seems to be trying to apply the rules for an LA funded or part LA funded person to someone who is a self funder, which they can't do.
The LA funding will start to kick in when her assets fall below about £23k(ish) so if she's getting close to that (after the sale of the house) then I can see why they're interested, but if it's some time away then as I say it's really none of their business.
It's perfectly in order for her to continue to give gifts (or cash) for birthdays, christmas or whatever in line with what she did before she went into care.
While she's self funding she can keep all on her pension, I think the SW may be referring to the £24.90 that you're always allowed to keep for personal use but again that rule doesn't apply to self funder.
I can see why the LA want her to spend as little as possible so her self funding will last as long as possible, but they have to play by the rules and what you've been told aren't the rule as I understand them.
K

 

[LYN T]

Hi Mary

Is your Mum receiving Attendance Allowance. As a self funder she will still be entitled and you could use that to pay her Adult Placement.

 

[realist1234]

I agree with the other comments - if she is self-funding, she can pay for this from her own money, and she should be getting Attendance Allowance which would cover the cost. Though £55 for a single day seems rather steep? Costs for a weekly day out is a reasonable expenditure and the LA cannot object to it - they should be reminded that as she is self-funding LA is only involved because you chose to have them involved - you could have chosen to deal directly with the CH. I would just say though that once she stops being self-funding, part of the cost could come from her weekly 'allowance' .

 

[tigerlady]

You say your Mum went into a care home in July but the sale of her house is only just going through. Who has been paying for the care home during this period? If it is the LA through a deferred payment scheme, then they will want the repayment when the house is sold and if that takes her near the £23,250 threshold, then maybe thats what they're talking about, although in this day and age a house sale would provide quite a few years care home fees before dropping to that level.

If you have been paying the care home fees from her savings, and they are approaching the threshold, then they may be concerned about that, but they still should not interfere as the proceeds of the house will soon be available. They may want a deferred payment agreement if the money from the house wont be available until after her savings reach the threshold.

If neither of these apply, your mum is entitled to all her pension and the higher rate attendance allowance to add to the proceeds of the sale, and as long as the care home fees are paid she can do as she likes with the rest of the money until it drops to the threshold of £23,250. Then they would pay part of the fees until your mum's savings got to £14,250. After that the attendance allowance is stopped and the personal allowance of £24.90 is the only part of her pension she is allowed to keep, as she will then be funded by the LA

Here are some fact sheets from Age UK - the first is the treatment of property in the means test. the second is a more general factsheet regarding paying for care

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/E...provision_fcs.pdf?epslanguage=en-GB?dtrk=true

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/E...tial_care_fcs.pdf?epslanguage=en-GB?dtrk=true

 

[mancmum]

Cost of daycare

Just to say five years ago my MIL was paying 50.00 a day to sit in draughty church hall with substandard care. So if your relative is only paying 55.00 taking inflation into account it probably isn't so extortionate .....except for the fact that my local authority was one of the most expensive - in my mind relying on the fact that most people were not self funding and using this fee as a way of generating cash for adult services.

 

[MARYGIL]

Hi Mary, welcome to TP
I've no idea where the social worker's advise comes from, while she's self funding it's really none of their business what she does with her money.
In the future it may be her savings dwindle and she has to ask the LA to pay her care costs at which point they could look back at how she'd been spending money to ensure she hadn't deliberately "deprived herself of assets" but a few trips on an OAP's day out is hardly a flight on Concorde to New York or a trip on the Orient Express.
The SW seems to be trying to apply the rules for an LA funded or part LA funded person to someone who is a self funder, which they can't do.
The LA funding will start to kick in when her assets fall below about £23k(ish) so if she's getting close to that (after the sale of the house) then I can see why they're interested, but if it's some time away then as I say it's really none of their business.
It's perfectly in order for her to continue to give gifts (or cash) for birthdays, christmas or whatever in line with what she did before she went into care.
While she's self funding she can keep all on her pension, I think the SW may be referring to the £24.90 that you're always allowed to keep for personal use but again that rule doesn't apply to self funder.
I can see why the LA want her to spend as little as possible so her self funding will last as long as possible, but they have to play by the rules and what you've been told aren't the rule as I understand them.
Thanks for getting back to me, we are having a big stress about it, you've really put my mind at ease. It was the Finance woman from the LA, who gave us this information. However, ahe has been a bit ambiguous generally about issues relating to mums finances. I am not sure how long mum will be up to her weekly outing, but whilst she ia able to, we would lie her to continue. Thanks x

 

[MARYGIL]

hi mary, welcome to tp
i've no idea where the social worker's advise comes from, while she's self funding it's really none of their business what she does with her money.
In the future it may be her savings dwindle and she has to ask the la to pay her care costs at which point they could look back at how she'd been spending money to ensure she hadn't deliberately "deprived herself of assets" but a few trips on an oap's day out is hardly a flight on concorde to new york or a trip on the orient express.
The sw seems to be trying to apply the rules for an la funded or part la funded person to someone who is a self funder, which they can't do.
The la funding will start to kick in when her assets fall below about £23k(ish) so if she's getting close to that (after the sale of the house) then i can see why they're interested, but if it's some time away then as i say it's really none of their business.
It's perfectly in order for her to continue to give gifts (or cash) for birthdays, christmas or whatever in line with what she did before she went into care.
While she's self funding she can keep all on her pension, i think the sw may be referring to the £24.90 that you're always allowed to keep for personal use but again that rule doesn't apply to self funder.
I can see why the la want her to spend as little as possible so her self funding will last as long as possible, but they have to play by the rules and what you've been told aren't the rule as i understand them.
Thanks for getting back to me, we are having a big stress about it, you've really put my mind at ease. It was the finance woman from the la, who gave us this information. However, ahe has been a bit ambiguous generally about issues relating to mums finances. I am not sure how long mum will be up to her weekly outing, but whilst she ia able to, we would lie her to continue. Thanks x

 

[MARYGIL]

Hi Mary

Is your Mum receiving Attendance Allowance. As a self funder she will still be entitled and you could use that to pay her Adult Placement.

I think she does get attendance allowance.

 

[MARYGIL]

Hi Mary, welcome to TP
I've no idea where the social worker's advise comes from, while she's self funding it's really none of their business what she does with her money.
In the future it may be her savings dwindle and she has to ask the LA to pay her care costs at which point they could look back at how she'd been spending money to ensure she hadn't deliberately "deprived herself of assets" but a few trips on an OAP's day out is hardly a flight on Concorde to New York or a trip on the Orient Express.
The SW seems to be trying to apply the rules for an LA funded or part LA funded person to someone who is a self funder, which they can't do.
The LA funding will start to kick in when her assets fall below about £23k(ish) so if she's getting close to that (after the sale of the house) then I can see why they're interested, but if it's some time away then as I say it's really none of their business.
It's perfectly in order for her to continue to give gifts (or cash) for birthdays, christmas or whatever in line with what she did before she went into care.
While she's self funding she can keep all on her pension, I think the SW may be referring to the £24.90 that you're always allowed to keep for personal use but again that rule doesn't apply to self funder.
I can see why the LA want her to spend as little as possible so her self funding will last as long as possible, but they have to play by the rules and what you've been told aren't the rule as I understand them.
K

Thanks kevinl that info is really helpful.

 

[MARYGIL]

I agree with the other comments - if she is self-funding, she can pay for this from her own money, hiand she should be getting Attendance Allowance which would cover the cost. Though £55 for a single day seems rather steep? Costs for a weekly day out is a reasonable expenditure and the LA cannot object to it - they should be reminded that as she is self-funding LA is only involved because you chose to have them involved - you could have chosen to deal directly with the CH. I would just say though that once she stops being self-funding, part of the cost could come from her weekly 'allowance' .
Thanks, it costs £35 a day, its a private arrangement now, but the lady that takes her out, is the lady from adult placement. We give mum £20 to pay for lunch and if she wants to buy some bits & bobs.

 

[rrnhome]

Plans to scrap Attendance Allowance

Government are planning to scrap Attendance Allowance and pass the money saved to local Councils which will then only help people with critical needs. What happens to all the people who used to get Attendance Allowance? Left high and dry!

Please consider signing these 2 petitions to stop the governments plans:

Stop the government scrapping Attendance Allowance (AA) on the Government's own petition website
Also
Don't abolish Attendance Allowance on the 38degrees petition website

Many thanks.

 

[Beate]

Plans at the moment seem to say that only new claims would be stopped and who has it can keep it. But nothing is certain!

 

[geum123]

Government are planning to scrap Attendance Allowance and pass the money saved to local Councils which will then only help people with critical needs. What happens to all the people who used to get Attendance Allowance? Left high and dry!

Please consider signing these 2 petitions to stop the governments plans:

Stop the government scrapping Attendance Allowance (AA) on the Government's own petition website
Also
Don't abolish Attendance Allowance on the 38degrees petition website

Many thanks.

Thanks for drawing my attention to that. I've signed both petitions.

Local councils mismanage enough of the public purse in my opinion.
Much better that it is paid directly to those who need it.

 

[Pickles53]

I agree that Attendance Allowance should continue to be paid directly to those who need it and have signed the petition. However, there is a new thread about how to spend Attendance Allowance where one poster has said it could be spent on anything, even booze and fags. That attitude worries me quite a bit. I'm sure that 99.9% of recipients spend AA exactly as it was intended, to help with the care they need, but if the government wants to get rid of it you can bet they'll look for the 0.01% who don't and use those examples to justify getting rid of it.

 

[Beate]

I said it can theoretically be spent on anything as there is absolutely no stipulation in the rules what it should be spent on. I am not advocating spending any money on booze and fags, but I was trying to reassure the poster that it will be ok for her to be given this money if she is caring for someone and that person wants her to have it. So please don't take my words out of context!

 

[realist1234]

I said it can theoretically be spent on anything as there is absolutely no stipulation in the rules what it should be spent on. I am not advocating spending any money on booze and fags, but I was trying to reassure the poster that it will be ok for her to be given this money if she is caring for someone and that person wants her to have it. So please don't take my words out of context!

Thats fair enough, but it is not supposed to be given to a carer, it is supposed to cover the day to day additional needs of someone who requires extra help. But not by way of payment to a carer.

 

[fizzie]

I agree Pickles and I too am campaigning locally as well to get signatures on the petitions that are currently going around and working to help people who need to fill in forms. I also agree that although it shouldn't be stopped there should be some guidelines about how it used - it will only be the minority I hope that don't use it for the care (in some form even if it is petrol or similar), that it is intended for. Perhaps there will be a compromise but the intention is that it will go to Local Councils to boost the funds for adult care which means (or at least has done in the past) that it will never be seen again!

 

[Pickles53]

I said it can theoretically be spent on anything as there is absolutely no stipulation in the rules what it should be spent on. I am not advocating spending any money on booze and fags, but I was trying to reassure the poster that it will be ok for her to be given this money if she is caring for someone and that person wants her to have it. So please don't take my words out of context!

I could see what you were getting at but was a bit worried that someone might take it at face value. Sorry, didn't mean to upset you.

 

[Kevinl]

but it is not supposed to be given to a carer, it is supposed to cover the day to day additional needs of someone who requires .
But not by way of payment to a carer.

I really don't understand that. What kind or "extra help" is there other than a carer?
So "it is not supposed to be given to a carer" but it is to be used to get "extra help".

According to the Government website (link below):
"Attendance Allowance is paid weekly at 2 different rates - the one you get depends on the level of help you need."

I can't see why you'd think it can't be used to pay someone to help you, that's exactly what it's supposed to do. Although I still prefer the booze and fags option.
K

https://www.gov.uk/attendance-allowance/what-youll-get