Equality of Care Home Fees

[Alastair]

Does anyone know if the Government or LA has been challenged over LA funded v self funded care costs.

My father is self funds his Nursing care but is paying about £10,000 a year more than the LA do. I think this is an abuse of market dominance by the government who, by virtue of their buying power, keep their own costs artificially low and force others to pay more. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind paying but the market is effectively being ‘fixed’ by the government.

Isn’t this somehow illegal, more so when it targets the most vulnerable in society? Or is it just morally reprehensible and another reason to loathe successive Governments?

Sorry, but 5 years of selling stuff to pay for care and I’m just angry with the whole care system.☹️

 

[Louise7]

I don't think anyone with personal experience of the social care system would disagree that it is broken and needs more funding but I'm not sure that I'd agree that there's an illegal 'abuse of market dominance'. Local authorities are provided with a set budget from Government each year and they decide for themselves how they are going to spend it, including setting their own levels with regards to the maximum they will pay towards care home fees. The problem is that these are never as high as the average rate of fees in the area as these are set by the care homes themselves who are businesses (although there are a few local authority owned care homes, but not many). Many care homes will no longer accept residents at the local authority rate. Those that do presumably do so because they are guaranteed occupancy and regular fees if they agree to provide a number of rooms at the local authority rate, but then tend to increase the rates for their other rooms to make up for the shortfall. It would take a large increase in the social care budget for local authorities to be able to afford the full rates that care homes charge - my Mum's local authority will only pay around £750 maximum for a nursing home place yet the average rate in the area is between £1,100 - £1,300. All have waiting lists so don't need to take in local authority funded residents. At least as a self funder there is a choice of care home whereas if you are reliant on local authority funding it's a case of just having to take what's offered/available within their budget (unless relatives are in a position to pay top ups).

 

[Jaded'n'faded]

Does anyone know if the Government or LA has been challenged over LA funded v self funded care costs.

My father is self funds his Nursing care but is paying about £10,000 a year more than the LA do. I think this is an abuse of market dominance by the government who, by virtue of their buying power, keep their own costs artificially low and force others to pay more. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind paying but the market is effectively being ‘fixed’ by the government.

Isn’t this somehow illegal, more so when it targets the most vulnerable in society? Or is it just morally reprehensible and another reason to loathe successive Governments?

Sorry, but 5 years of selling stuff to pay for care and I’m just angry with the whole care system.☹

My mum was in exactly this situation, paying £200 a week more than the LA-funded lady in the room next door.

Whilst, like you, I agree that those who can pay should do so, it is exactly this inequity that really annoyed me. (More than I can say without swearing!) It seems to be a situation unique to homes that take a mixture of private and LA-funded residents and the private ones end up subsidising the LA ones. Absolutely not fair.

If you decide to mount a challenge to the government, I'll add my name.

 

[Shedrech]

hello @Alastair
you might like to have a look at this

Quality social care

Right now, nearly a million families affected by dementia in the UK are struggling to get the support and care that they need and deserve

www.alzheimers.org.uk

 

[Banjomansmate]

I suspect that in The Banjoman’s Care Home the LA funded residents had much smaller rooms and facilities than the self funding ones. He was LA funded. I think we were accidentally shown a (slightly) larger one when we went to look on the Saturday and agreed that he should go there. When we (his brother & S-I-l and I ) went to look at the room again a few days later we were given a different room number and shown a much smaller room with a window set so high you could only see out of it if you were standing up. I insisted on him having the original room iwith two windows which you could see out of easily, as that was the one we agreed on. It had a big wardrobe and space for his recliner chair and was much pleasanter all round. If they had shown us the smaller room first I think we would have had grave doubts about that home, we had already decided against another because the bedroom was so pokey.

The home had been a seaside hotel that had been altered to make a Care home and from what I saw some other residents had bigger rooms.

 

[Cazzita]

Thanks for the link Shedrech, I have emailed my MP