The "F" Word

[JackyS]

I don't often use it, but tonight I seem to have used it a lot (the F word, I mean). Got home late after long day to find a letter from the dear Council.

They recently agreed to deferred payments for Mum while we are trying to sell her flat. Hurrah, we thought, we don't need to worry about financing Mum's care home any more! How wrong we were. Mum's room cost £540 a week (not a nursing home, it's still probably the cheapest care home around here and only 2 miles away from me). The council won't pay all of it, they pay around £370 a week (when I first expressed surprise - most homes around here cost £800 a week plus - they assured me that the figure will cover the whole cost of a room in a home on the outskirts of their area - far enough away for me to only be able to visit at weekends). So, we have to find almost £170 a week for the rest.

Fair enough - painful but vaguely understandable. But, now, I get home tonight to find this sodding envelope which tells me we owe the Council £104.something a week for Mum's "care" as well. WHAT????

I'm not s stupid person (no, really) but no-one has explained this to me. And I'm FED UP (to the back teeth) with it all. WHY can't someone just say it'll cost you £x a week for your Mum to stay in this Home and we'll pay £y a week until you can sell her flat??? End of. Are there yet more charges to come out of the woodwork?

Meanwhile, I've got 3 forms burning a hole on my kitchen table where it seems I have to sign my life away to confirm the deferred payment.

I feel the need, not only to say the F word a few more times, but also to ring them up on Monday and tell them to stuff their deferred payments, I'll increase my mortgage, sell my body and auction a kidney instead. Frankly it sounds a lot easier.

PS I know, I know, before anyone else says it: the selling my body bit wouldn't bring in much!

 

[creativesarah]

How awful for you

much support Sarah

 

[PeggySmith]

Hi Jacky S. Ditto here. Will post again tomorrow as not fit to communicate tonight.

Will just say that I finally cracked last night and OH and BIL are on the case as well as me.

Where on earth do you live? Our LA pay £535 and that's not enough either.

How come Cheshire are so much tighter than BANES?

Second and final edit - DON'T agree to pay a top up yourself. If I've read that once on here, I've read it 1,000 times. Don't know why, though.

 

[bmw777]

makes me want to say the F word to !!!!
Dont sign anything , in case you regret it , get some advice first .
otherwise you might be F

 

[fredsnail]

I don't often use it, but tonight I seem to have used it a lot (the F word, I mean). Got home late after long day to find a letter from the dear Council.

They recently agreed to deferred payments for Mum while we are trying to sell her flat. Hurrah, we thought, we don't need to worry about financing Mum's care home any more! How wrong we were. Mum's room cost £540 a week (not a nursing home, it's still probably the cheapest care home around here and only 2 miles away from me). The council won't pay all of it, they pay around £370 a week (when I first expressed surprise - most homes around here cost £800 a week plus - they assured me that the figure will cover the whole cost of a room in a home on the outskirts of their area - far enough away for me to only be able to visit at weekends). So, we have to find almost £170 a week for the rest.

Fair enough - painful but vaguely understandable. But, now, I get home tonight to find this sodding envelope which tells me we owe the Council £104.something a week for Mum's "care" as well. WHAT????

I'm not s stupid person (no, really) but no-one has explained this to me. And I'm FED UP (to the back teeth) with it all. WHY can't someone just say it'll cost you £x a week for your Mum to stay in this Home and we'll pay £y a week until you can sell her flat??? End of. Are there yet more charges to come out of the woodwork?

Meanwhile, I've got 3 forms burning a hole on my kitchen table where it seems I have to sign my life away to confirm the deferred payment.

I feel the need, not only to say the F word a few more times, but also to ring them up on Monday and tell them to stuff their deferred payments, I'll increase my mortgage, sell my body and auction a kidney instead. Frankly it sounds a lot easier.

PS I know, I know, before anyone else says it: the selling my body bit wouldn't bring in much!

Jackie have you spoken to the care home - Grandad's were able to offer us a couple of alternatives to reduce the additional costs such as sharing a room, or giving us a lower top up fee.

 

[Saffie]

Sorry to read your post Jacky. What I think of our LA financial team couldn't be aired either! They like everything to be clear and precise - definitely not! I think they have training in how to make things sound sensible and logical at the time but when you mull over it, you realise it doesn't make any sense whatsoever! I hope you manage to get things sorted out to your satisfaction - unlike me!

 

[PeggySmith]

Good morning JackieS,

You're not alone in finding it difficult to unpick the surreal world of funding care.

But, now, I get home tonight to find this sodding envelope which tells me we owe the Council £104.something a week for Mum's "care" as well.

I assume that your mum was getting care before she went into the residential home?
I assume that your mum has savings & income more than £14,500
If that's the case then the £104 is her contribution to the home care for last month.

Do you know about the 12 week disregard? That can be used instead of deferred payments and you can pay the top up out of your mum's own money for that period. However, she'll lose her attendance allowance for the 12 weeks.

Still confused? Well, as they say, "Welcome to my world"

Good luck with it all and please keep posting.

 

[JackyS]

Thanks PeggySmith (and everyone else) - yes, am aware of the 12 weeks disregard - in fact, I think we're supposed to be in it right now. But does this mean that, when Mum's flat is sold, we just pay back the Council the paltry (oops, leaking a bit there) contribution they've made to her weekly care home fees LESS the £104 odd pounds a week they're now trying to charge us? (she's already paying the top-up contribution to the weekly care home fees, too)

The most annoying thing about all of this is that just when I thought I vaguely understood it all, this invoice has come out of nowhere and I"M JUST SO CROSS that no-one bothered to check my understanding and it's arrived with no explanation!

While it's nice to hear I'm not alone in feeling so frustrated and confused, it's a sad reflection of the complexity of something that needs to be as simple as possible for people already emotionally and physically exhausted.

Roll on Monday when I can properly vent over the phone to the poor Council worker who answers the phone!

 

[PeggySmith]

Hi Jacky,

No, you don't pay back their paltry contribution. As I understand it the 12 week disregard means that the council act as though there was no flat for funding purposes so base what they pay on her savings and income.

Don't forget that when the 12 weeks are up she goes back to getting attendance allowance. It should happen automatically, but don't count on anything.

 

[Rubicca]

Hi Jacky, I totally understand where you are coming from! I'm new to all this as mum has only recently gone into a care home. It's like another world, all the diffrent depatments that deal with things, no one acknowledging what someone in another office does or doesn't do. You ring someone for help who then gives you a number for somewhere else, who then tells you a load of **** !! and at the end of the day you end up feeling as though you are the one who needs to be in a care home !!!
Sorry, rant over, but why does it have to be sooo complicated? I'm sure it's done in the hope that we will all give up, just hand over the money, and go away. Like I said, I'm new to all this, and I feel like running away already. . !
Chin up, don't let the ******* get you down!

 

[Wirralson]

Funding limits

Hi Jacky S. Ditto here. Will post again tomorrow as not fit to communicate tonight.

Will just say that I finally cracked last night and OH and BIL are on the case as well as me.

Where on earth do you live? Our LA pay £535 and that's not enough either.

How come Cheshire are so much tighter than BANES?

Second and final edit - DON'T agree to pay a top up yourself. If I've read that once on here, I've read it 1,000 times. Don't know why, though.

PeggySmith,

I think (but I don't know for certain) that the issue may be that JackieS is arranging to sell her mother's flat to pay the fees and that her mother will at least initially be a self-funder once that is done. There may be a difference in cost limit under the deferred payments scheme but as I haven't had to use Cheshire's services (my mother is in a different local authority) I can't comment. Depending on where in Cheshire JackieS's mother is, then the cost limits were (in 2010) £552 per week for Cheshire East and £649 per week for Cheshire West and Chester, but this appears to be for cases where the local authority was funding the care permanently either under s117 of the Mental Health Act or where the individual's assets are below the £14,250 threshold. The figure of £370 or so that JackieS quotes does puzzle me, though. In her position I'd queery it and ask what the Council limits are. It is possible the Council has cut its limit since the figures I saw were compiled. I know my mother's local authority area had done that, and it was adjacent to Cheshire.

Wirralson

 

[Saffie]

then the cost limits were £552 per week for Cheshire East and £649 per week for Cheshire West and Chester, but this appears to be for cases where the local authority was funding the care permanently either under s117 of the Mental Health Act or where the individual's assets are below the £14,250 threshold. The figure of £350 or so that JackieS quotes does puzzle me, though.

Those figures seem very generous to me as our LA doesn't pay anything like as much as that. Our nusring homes are around £1,000 a week too.

 

[The DIL]

MIL is funded by the Local Authority, but still has to pay all of her pension except £23 something towards the costs. Are you sure thats not what they are asking for? Would her pension(s) and AA (which i understand you keep if you are self funding) doesn't add up the the figure you're being asked to pay? Top up fee are obviously different.

Even though she is funded by the LA her contribution is still around £500 per month which is only fair. The LA I live in has allowances for fees between £475 and £565 per week.

I suppose the more you pay towards the fees now the now the less you'll need to pay back when you sell the your mum's house.

 

[Wirralson]

Variations in cost between local authorities

Those figures seem very generous to me as our LA doesn't pay anything like as much as that. Our nusring homes are around £1,000 a week too.

Hi Saffie,

A good point. I'm relying on this site, as I haven't been able to find any other traceable public listing:

http://fullfact.org/articles/social_care_the_postcode_lottery-28576

I'd suggest caution in using it since the figures do vary a lot. It isn't clear to me that all of the figures quoted are what the local authority cost limit is. In some cases it may be an average of what they are actually paying out, where in some cases they may have to pay well above their own limit. It also isn't clear what is included in the figure, as the basis isn't stated in the article. My mother's local authority didn't even acknowledge my Freedom of Information requests about this and were subsequently taken to task by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for refusing to answer requests, so even that route for finding out was closed. If you don't mind me asking, what is the figure for your Local Authority and how does it compare with that on the website I gave above? That for my mother's authority checks out roughly with the information we had for 2010/11.

Wirralson

 

[2jays]

When I asked mums council about disregard they gave me a figure they would pay towards her care home fees, but we would need to top up the rest.

I refused the idea of us paying the top up

I also said..... You cannot move mum from the care home she is in, as she is a vulnerable adult, who is in an environment she feels safe in.

Answer from council

Ok that's ok, we won't move her, you can add the top up fees the to deferred payment, so when her house is sold, you have nothing to worry about.

Thankfully I do not have to trust the councils assurances that I wouldn't need to pay the top up, or that top ups would be added to the deferred payments....

Mums house was sold, before I needed to rely on their, in my opinion ( legal speak) false promises - cynic, me, not at all. I have been a member of TP a long time. I have heard all the excuses that councils make, all the rules the council make up out if thin air (i have said in my opinion - legal speak) from listening to people who post on TP

 

[PeggySmith]

Umm! Bath and North East Somerset Residential £656 - Actually for MIL who has multiple needs they will pay £536. So who gets the upper limit?

If they paid out £656 for MIL who is going into one of the cheapest nursing homes we looked at there would be a shortfall of £10.00. Oh, before anyone thinks "saving the inheritance" it's not that at all. We just chose the best home for her needs. The next one up was £750 and BIL really liked it until he realised that it wasn't for her. The most expensive was dreadful on all levels.

 

[dognecks]

citizens advice are really good to get the information you need like charges from care homes and councils . the system is so complicated, as each individual case is different , citizens advice will help you with what you need to know, and they get up dated if any of the system changes , as sometimes this isnt always advertised just to confuse you and save the system money, use the citizens advice while its still around...

 

[PeggySmith]

There may be a difference in cost limit under the deferred payments scheme
Wirralson​

Cost limit is variable? I've assumed that the LA has a ceiling that nobody can go above? Am I wrong?

 

[Wirralson]

Cost limits

Cost limit is variable? I've assumed that the LA has a ceiling that nobody can go above? Am I wrong?

Not quite. It is probably best for me to link to this thread http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?54323-117-funding and post #10 where I set out how it was explained to my father and me. Separately I assume that if someone moves from being a self-funder to the local authority being responsible for funding (or if they have assets below the threshold and are local-authority funded from the start) then I think the local authority limit would probably be absolute as you state. As explained to me, the power to charge has a different legal basis from the duty imposed under section 117 of the Mental Health Act. There are several different pieces of legislation involved.

My mother's situation was a little different from the one JackieS is describing. In my mother's case, she had been sectioned, and this seems to make the way the funding situation works differently in some details. As the relevant MIND Factsheet makes clear, Section 117 of the Mental Health Act imposes a freestanding duty to provide aftercare services for someone who has been detained under section 3 of the same Act. I was advised by my mother's social worker if the only home which could have met my mother's needs had exceeded the Local Authority's limit, then they could in theory have been obliged to pay in excess of that limit. I stress in theory as neither the social worker, nor our solicitor (nor two friends who had taken legal advice in similar situations) had any experience to support that actually happening. It may have explained the reluctance of the local authority to tell us what the cost limit actually was. What I have taken this to mean is that the Local Authority cost limit is more or less absolute. However, in the case of someone who had been sectioned under section 3 of the Mental Health Act and who had complex or expensive needs, it was suggested to my father and me that it might be worth thinking about challenging the cost limit under s117. This is a complicated area and anyone who is thinking of it needs specialist advice from Alzheimer's Society and/or MIND and from personal experience I would advise anyone who thinks this is an issue to consult a specialist solicitor. Without such advice, we would have floundered. In the event we didn't need to challenge anything, or at least haven't needed to do so as of today.

In the post concerned I was only trying to find out what the figures actually show. As the subsequent posts have shown, there is a difference between the figures on the site and what people are experiencing in the real world. If the difference is around £108 (as in the Bath and North East Somerset example you give) that might be accounted for by the NHS nursing care contribution for 2010/2011. Or have the rates been cut? Are they affected by VAT or not? The absence of a clear published list for local authorities' cost limits is a serious lack for those facing finding care and paying for it. If nothing else the difference between reported experiences and the figures quoted should warn people not to rely on the website figures as a guide. Sarby's suggestions to what the article figures actually show seem to me to be in the right area.

Finally, I would endorse your comments about the most expensive homes often being not as good as less expensive alternatives. The three best homes we found for my mum were the least expensive we looked at. Friends in other areas found the same. There were also cheaper ones but they were in less convenient locations.

Wirralson

 

[PeggySmith]

Thanks Wirralson. I'm sloooowly getting my head round it all