I completely agree that the kindness of the care staff is the main factor in good quality residential care, regardless of the price paid, the facilities or the decor. I have no experience of nursing care for mum or MIL, so can't comment on that.
In terms of choice, self funding means that if I was concerned about the care my relatives were receiving, I would have the choice of finding somewhere else relatively easily and swiftly, without having to jump through social services hoops.
I understand that there were/are probably residents in mums and my MILs CHs who were funded by the LA: lucky them. I have no gripes with that either, and I never made any attempt to find out who they were. It was none of my business.
My point is that both my mum and MIL entered the CH of their choice at the time of their choice. No financial assessment, no pleading the case with the social worker. Some visits to assess the various homes, a phone call to book a place when the time seemed right and an assessment by the manager to make sure they could cope...and that was it.
Compared to the anguish we read about daily from carers on TP, it was a doddle. Of course, choosing a CH for a relative is never going to be easy, but it's a lot less stressful when you're in control and not at the mercy of the decisions of others.
Going back to the inheritance connection - if you genuinely can accept early on that it is your relatives money to be used for their care and that you may or may not in time receive some part of it after their death, then you may be spared the bitterness that some clearly feel over the unfairness over the system. As Ive tried to say before, the relative in the CH concerned generally has no need for the assets by that stage - the potential beneficiaries in a will are those who will be negatively affected and, imo, it's not their money anyway.
Chemmy
I have bolded something which confirms what I had been wondering during the course of our discussions - and that is our disagreements are largely because we are basing our arguments on different things!
If as you say, you are only talking about
residential homes, then I am in complete agreement with you! People who need this level of care would legitimately fall under social services remit and could be charged for their care. I think the ADASS guidelines say the upper level of their responsibility would be around 2 'highs' and 3 'moderates' if measured on the DST. I would have
no problem at all about paying in that case as it is lawful.
And in that case, I also agree that self-funding does give you a greater autonomy without having to involve social services. My limited experience of them is enough to know that not needing to go through them would be advantageous. It would also give you a greater choice of home (although we have all agreed that more expensive does not always = 'better'). And at this level of illness one also has some sort of
choice whether to go into care or not in the first place. It is at a stage where it is not impossible to deal with at home.
I, on the other hand, have been talking from my own relatives' experience (one with AD, one with MS with cognitive decline). They were both told that care at home with support was not possible, and that the only option was a nursing home. However, at the same time they did not meet the very high qualifying bar that the NHS use for CHC (contrary to the Coughlan judgement). They then, like many others, were in a position of having to pay for what is essentially NHS level care - way above social services remit. This is where the self-funder loses out as they are illegally forced to pay. And I agree with Pete in respect of inheritance in this case.
Can I just say something on the subject of the link between appealing wrongful CHC decisions being just to 'protect' one's inheritance'? We appealed on by sister's behalf even though a) we were not her beneficiaries and b) she had nothing to leave anyway. We appealed because we did not think it was right that social services were having to pay for what the NHS should be.
Finally, when illness is at this level, no money in the world can necessarily buy the right care. In my father's case, that care is in an NHS unit so not accessible to self-funders/LA - only through CHC. Now he has got CHC, he of course is no longer self-funding, but any money I may happen to inherit as a result (I would have inherited it anyway did he not have AD) is secondary to the fact that he is getting the right care, as the NHS have a duty to do.
And they had both LA and self funders living there.
