Residents being funded by the LA, are being subsidised by bumping up the fees for self funders. I find this very unfair.
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Care Homes Costs
- Thread starter sukpmp
- Start date
It does seem that way! The care home we are using is £950 for self funding and under £800 for the council rate. The self funding is going to last a few months and then the council will be contributing (savings will go under 23,250). I presume at that point the fee will go back down to the council rate?
The council deducted all my Mum’s contribution from pension, etc. from THEIR contribution, (Lincolnshire), my sister managed to negotiate a reduced fee with the Home and we had to top up all the rest. It meant the Council actually paid very little at all.
Oh...so you mean if the council contribution was for example £600 per week they deducted £200 per week pension income, leaving £400 per week contribution from the council? Asking a third party to top up the rest.....> Third party Top-Ups are Voluntary!
it definitely didn’t feel voluntary. Basically pay tge top up or move Mum. And while all the literature/info said the Council had to offer at least one placement at a Home which would not want a Top Up, the reality was they gave me a booklet of approved Homes and up to me to find one, all those I contacted wanted bigger Top Ups and Mum didn’t want to move. My sister had to use her state pension (which she’d just got), till I also got mine then we split it between us. What really annoyed us was Mum not being able to use her own savings. Try explaining to someone with limited capacity that they have to move to a Home they don’t want to because they can’t use their own money to top up their fees….
We need someone like Despatches to look into these top-up fees. SS must be fully aware that their contribution is insufficient but they seem content to put families under yet more financial pressure.
Like so many others, I've lost tens of thousands in lost income and had my pension reduced accordingly. Enough is enough so if Mum lives until she needs funding, I will not and can not subsidise from my small pension.
It is all very unfair. And not even consistent acrosss the country. I think they all depend on the fact that none of us has the energy to fight our corner. And it’s the same at the other end with the nursery fees. The nurseries have to put up the rest of the fees to help fund the free places and hours they are forced to open. We had a lovely Nursery in our village, very well used, it’s been forced to close as couldn’t operate on the contributions for free places/hours, often used by non working parents, and the working parents couldn’t afford the ‘jump’ in fees for the hours they had to pay for……
I'm not holding my breath and as we've already self-funded for 2 years, I doubt it will help.
As we all know its a dirty old business. I live in the South East where there is a chasm between the payment offered by the LA and the payment required by the Homes.
I pay a top up from a legacy I received years ago. The amount I pay way exceeds what I am left to live on.
At the moment my husband is having lots of hospital appointments. Hospital transport is almost non existent in this area and the Nursing home think its so bad for people with dementia to have to sit around for hours. I don't drive so its taxis. I am down £300 in the last month and we still have 3 to go.
At some stage I think an investigative reporter will look into this and I agree its criminal that self funders subsidise people like my husband.
I also think its criminal that diseases like dementia are being regarded as a social issue.
I pay a top up from a legacy I received years ago. The amount I pay way exceeds what I am left to live on.
At the moment my husband is having lots of hospital appointments. Hospital transport is almost non existent in this area and the Nursing home think its so bad for people with dementia to have to sit around for hours. I don't drive so its taxis. I am down £300 in the last month and we still have 3 to go.
At some stage I think an investigative reporter will look into this and I agree its criminal that self funders subsidise people like my husband.
I also think its criminal that diseases like dementia are being regarded as a social issue.
The cap on care costs was promised when my mum had her dementia crisis in 2013, still waiting. The care cap only applies to care costs not 'hotel costs' so isn't as good as it looks.
In Scotland in theory free personal care is available, but there is a huge backlog for assessment, MIL in theory would likely qualify but we've been told bar is set very high so if assessed might not get anything, she is top of a waiting list for a care home and at some stage once in care home she might get assessed to reduce fees.
SS don't pay the going rate (their budgets are very stretched as well so issue lies elsewhere).
As @Jaded'n'faded says self funders subsidise non self funders so a double whammy, my mum was always quoting cradle to grave - she came from the East End of London, born 1930, and therefore access to health care was difficult when she was a child, the NHS creation meant a lot to her. She saved hard and her savings paid for her care.
In Scotland in theory free personal care is available, but there is a huge backlog for assessment, MIL in theory would likely qualify but we've been told bar is set very high so if assessed might not get anything, she is top of a waiting list for a care home and at some stage once in care home she might get assessed to reduce fees.
SS don't pay the going rate (their budgets are very stretched as well so issue lies elsewhere).
As @Jaded'n'faded says self funders subsidise non self funders so a double whammy, my mum was always quoting cradle to grave - she came from the East End of London, born 1930, and therefore access to health care was difficult when she was a child, the NHS creation meant a lot to her. She saved hard and her savings paid for her care.
Yes - free for all at the point of need
Over the years in England costs have been applied for most people on:
Prescriptions
Optical
Podiatry
Hearing
Cosmetic - mole removal etc
The costs are increased annually and exemptions are changed, over 60s free prescriptions recently nearly went to pensionable age free prescriptions.
@sukpmp you asked
"I realise you have to contribute most of your weekly income towards to the care fees. I'm just wanting some confidence that I've done my calculations correctly. I worked out (presuming no interest paid on it) that you'd been to pay just under £5 from your savings each week. Does that sound about right?"
That's right. My mother's savings went down to the £23k mark last year and the local authority started paying in October. Her savings have barely dwindled at all, I think it's by about £10 a month. The financial manager at the care home told me this would be the case, I didn't really understand till I saw it in action.
Our local authority offer just over £600 per week. The care home refused this amount and told them they required £1100. (They did ask if I could offer a top up, I said no, that was the end of that line of enquiry.) The decision went to a panel, who agreed to pay what the CH asked. So she has stayed in her original care home, at more or less the original self-funding fees.
"I realise you have to contribute most of your weekly income towards to the care fees. I'm just wanting some confidence that I've done my calculations correctly. I worked out (presuming no interest paid on it) that you'd been to pay just under £5 from your savings each week. Does that sound about right?"
That's right. My mother's savings went down to the £23k mark last year and the local authority started paying in October. Her savings have barely dwindled at all, I think it's by about £10 a month. The financial manager at the care home told me this would be the case, I didn't really understand till I saw it in action.
Our local authority offer just over £600 per week. The care home refused this amount and told them they required £1100. (They did ask if I could offer a top up, I said no, that was the end of that line of enquiry.) The decision went to a panel, who agreed to pay what the CH asked. So she has stayed in her original care home, at more or less the original self-funding fees.
I think there is a lot of power in the word no. SS then have to find an alternative even if they give out a list and say it’s up to you, saying no means they have to act. It is a gamble and none of this should be a gamble but when held to account LAs have to take action. What they cannot do is nothing and this has been tested in the courts.
Absolutely spot on and the way it's described by politicians gives a very misleading expectation of how it will work.
Cap of £86k is only for personal care costs which amount to approx 25% of total care costs. It will take on average four years to reach the cap and the average time spent in care just happens to be, yep you guessed it, four years. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though!! So you will still be expected to pay for the other 75% (and the 25% until it reaches the £86k cap) until your savings fall below £100k and then a gradually decreasing amount until your savings fall below £20k at which point the LA will fund your care.
The cap should have started in Oct 2023, now due to start in Oct 2025. At the moment it's still a proposal, nor is it a manifesto promise by either the red or blue team. If it happens I'll take everyone on the forum for a ride in my big yellow submarine.
LA's not only turn a blind eye to the guidance regarding top up fees they also seem to encourage them because it saves them having to increase their budget.
Apart from top ups being purely voluntary they should only ever be charged if there is a genuine uplift in accomodation or services provided or if the family have specifically requested a more expensive accomodation. They should not be a mechanism for funding the gap between what the LA pays and what the home charges.
The Dilnot report also contained an annual cap on 'hotel costs'.
The current guidance has removed this.
'The new charging policy framework
...
...
Where the person fully funds and arranges their own care, they will meter based on what the cost would be to the local authority, if it were to meet their eligible care and support needs. This ensures the new system does not unfairly advantage those who can afford to pay more for their care and want to do so to reach the cap quicker.
To level the playing field between those who receive home care with those living in a residential care setting, under the capped system, after reaching the cap, everyone in residential care will remain responsible for meeting their daily living costs (DLCs), such as rent, food and utility bills. The component of a person’s care package attributable to DLCs will not count towards the cap on care costs. DLCs will be set as a national, notional amount, the equivalent to £200 per week in financial year (FY) 2021 to 2022 prices.'
I was referring to this article :
Conservatives pledge social care reform and family hubs | Local Government Chronicle (LGC)
The Conservative party has pledged social care market reforms, to provide a multi-year funding settlement and fulfil their previous promise to cap social
www.lgcplus.com
I think if you read the small print it will be for those people that require care after the introduction date ( if it ever gets introduced ) and therefore probably wont apply to people already in the Care Home system. ....that's my guess any way.
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