Father - minimise nursing home cost to him

steve99

Hi,

My father aged 85(divorced) is getting increasingly worried about living on his own and managing his medical conditions(primarily maintenance of his catheter). He has some short term memory problems that are slowly getting worse.

He does have some home help and nursing care from the PCT as required.

He feels that at some point in the near future he will have to go into a nursing home.

His flat is worth about £230K and he has savings of about £80K that he is living off.

He is asking me about ways that he can minimise/avoid using all of this for nursing homes as he wants to leave as much as he can to his children(3) and grandchildren(7).

He wouldn't want to go into a council nursing home and realises that private ones are very expensive.

Is there a way that he can put aside some money for nursing home care but ring-fence everything else ?

TIA

Steve

dianasnan

have a look at long term care annuities. A lump sum pays for care fees.

monkeyspanner

Assuming your dad lives in England as he has more than £23000 in savings and property he wil be expected to pay for his own care home fees. The only exception to this is if his needs are primarily health rather than domestic, in which case he could claim NHS funded continuing healthcare. The CHC funding is assessed and funded by the PCT so in the first instance they could be approached.

As his memory is beginning to fail it would be adviseable to appoint someone as power of attorney who could takeover your father's financial affairs when necessary.

Under certain circumstances the value of property can be exempted from assessment. But this normally relies on a spouse or close relative also living in the house.

As dianasnan says your father could consider purchasing an immediate care needs anuity. Obviously the capital spent on the anuity is lost but this could provide a complete or partial income stream to pay all or part of the care home fees. Have a look at nhfa (part of HSBC) who specialise in this area.

If self funded your father would still be able to claim certain non means tested benefits such as Attendance Allowance.

Hope this helps.