Care costs and equity release - slightly complicated

Lunary

Hi all, I'm posting here on behalf if my parents aged 60 and 61 just to see if anyone has experienced the same thing we are going through.

My Mum has MS and over the weekend came down with a chest infection, unfortunately this caused her to lose all mobility in her legs and as my Dad has been ill for a week or so with the same thing and is unable to care for her, we had to find emergency respite care. We have booked her in for a week to end this weekend.

If my Mum doesn't regain any mobilty we will need to have some kind of care at home in place for when she comes out. My parents live in a two story house, which going by what my Dad has indicated is still fairly heavily mortgaged. He works from home and so requires at least two rooms for his office space. I don't think that he will be able to retire as they don't have any retirement fund. They have two stair lifts as the stairs are L shaped although before my Mum was put into the home, I was having to lift her from one to the other and then into a wheelchair when she reached the top and bottom. I think it is clear that they need to move but this could take quite a while and care will be much more difficult in the interim.

My mother also owns her mothers house (my Grandma) which will obviously come into play when we ask social services to assess my Mum for assistance with care. Does anyone know if you can use the equity release schemes on houses that you own but don't live in? The only way that I can see us funding the care for my mother if she doesn't regain some mobility is to somehow release equity in the house my Grandma is living in as we can't really sell the house from under her.

Unfortunately I am not really in a position to assist financially or with care help that much as I have a 15 month old and a job working from home, which takes up a lot of my waking hours. In fact this week, looking after my Mum and Dad in addition to my usual duties, I am already starting to feel the strain.

If anyone has undergone a similar experience, I would really like to hear as I am very new to anything related to car and nursing. I have contacted social services and am waiting to hear back from them although I suspect, and rightly so, they they won't be able to assist financially due to my Mum's capital. So I'm really just looking for any advice.

Thanks.

monkeyspanner

I think there is a possibility that your Mum may be able to get NHS funded Continuing Healthcare. If your Mum's care needs are primarily health rather than domestic then the NHS should fund the care she needs. This is not means tested, age is not relevant and the care can be provided in any environment including her own home. In the first instance your parents should approach the PCT (English Primary Care Trust) in their area or if in Wales or Scotland the Local health Board to get an assessment. This funding is difficult to obtain but as your Mum has MS it may become relevant at some stage.

This funding is not administered by the Social Services and if asked they may well say it is not relevant in your Mum's case but this is the standard response and often the SS are not sufficiently aware of how this funding is assessed.

Lunary

Thanks, I had not thought to contact the PCT, thank you for that thought.

[Deleted User]

I'm in Scotland and things are different here - much better I'm told.

We've now lost my mum & dad and mum-in-law, but in the past few years we did have major problems. In our case a comination of health and mental problems (dementia/bioplar). For all of us life was living hell and it was just impossible to get help and advice. We felt helpless.

The people that really got things moving for us were Carers Support. I would have thought you'd have something like this in your area? They were able to provide us with some practical support such as having a volunteer pop in a couple of times a week. But the main thing is that they knew EXACTLY what you were entitled to and they really got things moving for us.