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Minimising private care home costs

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  • lessonlearned
    lessonlearned Posts: 13,337 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    edited 6 October 2012 at 2:02PM
    I agree Polly - what happens to those without "dragons" or :A to watch over them.

    I have already taken some of the other residents in the home under my wing. I make them cups of tea, talk to them, play the fool and make them laugh, give them a cuddle. I cut one gentleman's nails for him (it's ok I'm a qualified and licensed beautician and he doesn't have diabetes).

    I'm no Mother Theresa - I just find it so sad that these poor souls have no-one other than paid carers who are either too busy or too lazy to spend a few minutes to have a little chat with them.

    Yes the carers can be very busy at times but this is a typical example from my dossier. Last Saturday evening OH and I had one of our little "Film Nights" - we watch a DVD and eat chocolate;)

    Anyway I went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. A gentleman in the next room had rang his buzzer. It had been going for at least 10 minutes. When I got to the kitchen 4 carers were sitting round a table chatting and laughing. The buzzer was clearly audible and they were just ignoring it.

    I politely pointed that B's buzzer was on. They all gave me a filthy look and one of them reluctantly went to investigate. B has dementia and cannot explain to his family when incidents like this take place. They visit him once a week and probably think he is in a wonderful home.

    As for your father breaking his hip whilst in hospital:eek:. It is inexcusable but unfortunately it's not the first time someone has told me something like this. My mother aged 86 was allowed to fall out of bed too, fortunately no bones broken.

    Hope your dad made a good recovery.
  • clemmatis
    clemmatis Posts: 3,168 Forumite
    gingerfox wrote: »
    lessonlearned - I totally sympathise with the exhaustion bit. NHS wanted me to complain about the last home when they saw the list I produced, but by then, I'd dealt with a spiteful Discharge Nurse who tried everything to block our funding, had to cope with the woeful lack of care (and incompetence) of the hospital (and that statement is the tip of the iceberg), often sitting overnight during my mother's worst times, witness her lurch from one disaster to another and now have few personal resources left.
    pollypenny wrote: »
    (Broken hip,done in hospital, three storey house bathroom in semi-basement)

    Yes, my mother fell in hospital -- while trying to get to the lavatories, having been unable to get help -- and broke her hip. She'd been in hospital for brief observation, only, and they'd already decided she could leave, after another day. She ended up there for months, and fell twice again, once when nurses were moving her between sub-wards. She was never to walk again. She was, I realised, afraid, following the fall, but even fairly late on, a carer there told me all she needed was a bit of encouragement, something in short supply...

    She was probably, when she entered hospital, in the very earliest stages of dementia. That is, she had begun to find it difficult to learn anything new or remember anything new she'd been told. She hadn't though failed to know, for example, who I was or where she was, or what food she expected (!). She didn't show any of the signs people talk about. So, I really didn't know.

    But after the op. for that fall, she just went downhill.

    I stopped them in effect pushing us into deciding on a nursing home too quickly -- having told me she must enter one, they then stopped me, continually, to ask when she'd be leaving for a home.. -- by slamming in a complaint about all the maltreatment there, and then disputing the ridiculously inadequate reply. And given the time I'd bought by doing that, I managed to find a good one.

    But like you, gingerfox, I was by then weary of fighting -- and miserable, miserable about my mother's condition. She was a shadow of what she had been. And the nursing home was paradise compared to the hospital, albeit it did not offer dementia care (I did not think to look for one given the hospital consultant had, at most, waffled on, deliberately?, about pseudo dementia caused by hospitals...). Of course, they had patients with dementia there, a few, anyway; presumably acquired because of failure to diagnose.

    What I could have done, had things gone wrong there, though, was simply move her to another nursing home.

    Lessonlearned, I too got to know other patients, simply because I visited so often, and visited during the day, when few others did. And now and then I met other relatives/carers. It's true that a simple chat is important; I've also met, in hospital, nursing home patients who really badly wanted simply to chat, and had almost forgotten how.

    I have, reading all this, and thinking back, been wondering whether there should not be some kind of half-way house between struggling to cope at home/trying to find the money to hire the right kind of home care, and nursing homes. It occurs to me that small co-op neighbourhood nursing homes might be better; ones that were somehow better integrated into the community.

    And inspections and inspection reports, the latter now far less informative than when I used them, should be improved.

    Still, this is not the thread's main subject.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    We've been away for the weekend, got back late last night, now this morning, reading the heartbreaking recent entries, it's hardly bearable.

    Reading back to the OP's first post, the assumptions were so facile and so cavalier it's barely believable, e.g.:
    It is our wish to pass on 99% of what is left to DS and have made wills accordingly. However, the possibility of future care may intervene and substantially reduce what we want DS to inherit.

    We are therefore looking for advice/ideas/tips on how to get/keep below the £23k threshold yet still retain an element of control over the above. Obviously this is to avoid care home costs in the future. We appreciate that council homes restrict choice, quality etc and accept our lot should we end up there.

    Re-reading this, in the context of what LL, clemmatis, Gingerfox and others have written, I am gobsmacked.

    'We appreciate that council homes restrict choice, quality etc and accept our lot should we end up there'. Well, all I can say to that, mate, is as my Jewish relatives-by-marriage might say 'You should only be so lucky!' In other words, you'll be lucky even to find any council homes in a few years' time. I read this only last week from someone in the political world, that they (council homes) will be as scarce as hens' teeth by the time you - the OP - has to 'accept your lot' in being there.

    No one should expect to have, by God-given right, an entitlement to an inheritance. So the OP and family have built up a healthy 'pot' of savings and assets. Well done. Many people don't have the ability, for whatever reason, to do that, and it isn't because they spent all before them on riotous living. If they have substantial assets then those assets should be used primarily for their own needs and whatever is left can still come down to the son. They're thinking the opposite. Son first and foremost, they have to 'accept their lot'. It's breathtaking. And who do they think should pay for them, if they don't pay for themselves? Answers on a postcard please!
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    Thank you so much for your offer to proof read my dossier Gingerfox - that is so kind of you. I will try and get it all typed out nicely and pm you.

    I am just too tired today and my eyes are stinging. After a bad day at the nursing home last Tuesday I had a complete melt down. I cried for hours, couldn't get warm and couldn't stop shaking. I've had a few weepy sessions since so my eyes still feel sore so I will leave it for a day or two.

    I do rather feel that I have "hogged" this thread a little. I am sorry for that - I only intended to post up the rough guide and leave it at that. I'm afraid I can "talk" for England at times.:o

    However, if by sharing my experiences with you along with those of Clemmatis and Gingerfox, then perhaps my chatter may have been useful to some of you who are trying to make plans.

    My husband was just 49 when illness struck. He was fit, healthy, athletic and sports mad. I was 55 and I was the one who had a bad back and was beginning to struggle with incipient arthritis.

    We had no thought that his illness would turn out to be so serious and that it would have such devastating long term repercussions. We had no time to prepare either mentally or financially.


    It just goes to show - you never know what's round the corner.

    I am so, so sorry. I've had experiences in my own life which demonstrate clearly that you never know what's round the corner. Almost 10 years ago my younger daughter died. I was talking to her at 5 pm, by 9 pm her husband was on the phone to us...I didn't even recognise his voice at first, it was so distorted.

    DH and I are still saving just because we do not know what's around the corner for us. Whatever it may be, we know from experience that it always helps to have a little money to 'oil the wheels'. Suppose we decide we need to convert the bathroom with shower into a full-scale wet-room - we can afford to get it done. A local supplier/installer told us only recently that if you want the council to do it, you wait 18 months.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • pollypenny
    pollypenny Posts: 29,416 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    [QUOTE=margaretclare;56375097


    No one should expect to have, by God-given right, an entitlement to an inheritance. So the OP and family have built up a healthy 'pot' of savings and assets. Well done. Many people don't have the ability, for whatever reason, to do that, and it isn't because they spent all before them on riotous living. If they have substantial assets then those assets should be used primarily for their own needs and whatever is left can still come down to the son. They're thinking the opposite. Son first and foremost, they have to 'accept their lot'. It's breathtaking. And who do they think should pay for them, if they don't pay for themselves? Answers on a postcard please![/QUOTE]


    Brilliant summary, MC!

    We get these requests for advice on milking the system so often and I was recently chastised by a poster for spelling it out to a newbie.


    If you can pay, you should pay; Simples!
    Member #14 of SKI-ers club

    Words, words, they're all we have to go by!.

    (Pity they are mangled by this autocorrect!)
  • noelphobic
    noelphobic Posts: 2,297 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker

    Continuing Health Care will cover all needs irrespective of whether the recipient is in a nursing home or is being nursed at home. If the recipient is in a nursing home then all fees would be paid in full by the PCT. No top up fee would need to be paid no matter how "expensive" the home.

    .

    Are you sure that top-up fees wouldn't be payable? I would think they would be, in the same way as if the person was funded by the LA because they had no savings or their savings were below the threshold.
    3 stone down, 3 more to go
  • clemmatis
    clemmatis Posts: 3,168 Forumite
    noelphobic wrote: »
    Are you sure that top-up fees wouldn't be payable? I would think they would be, in the same way as if the person was funded by the LA because they had no savings or their savings were below the threshold.

    Topping-up isn't allowed, as this counts as NHS treatment. But the PCT won't fund all nursing homes. So if someone's already in a nursing home whose fees are over their limit, they're supposed to assess the risks of moving them.
  • lessonlearned
    lessonlearned Posts: 13,337 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    edited 8 October 2012 at 1:51PM
    Well - re the Continuing Health Care - I doubt very much that he will "pass". He can still swallow - reasonably well - soft diet only - but is at risk from choking. So far we have been able to avoid J-peg feeding.

    Although he is has "accidents" I have refused so far to allow him to be fitted with a catheter.

    So if he can still swallow and pass urine - he'll probably fail to meet their criteria.

    We'll just have to wait and see.

    Yes Margaret I too find such arrogant assumptions as the Op has made quite breath-taking. I also find them distasteful tbh.

    Whilst it is a wonderful thing to be able to pass your children an inheritance they have no "right" to one. I'm sure I speak for many of my age when I say this - I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I've made my own way.

    I would love to be able to help my children on to the property ladder with a nice cash injection they could use for a deposit. Maybe if I can sell my house and downsize I will be able to, but I will have to keep a little back for myself.

    An elderly relative - now deceased - once gave me a very sage piece of advice.

    She said "Don't put your faith in the State, when you need it most it won't be there for you".

    I think you are very wise indeed to try and put a little money aside. I had to pay for a stair lift, wheelchairs etc. The waiting lists here are unacceptable.

    Waiting lists in our area for stair lifts are anything up to 2 years and beyond. My husband was promised one within approx 12 months "as a matter of urgency":rotfl:

    My long term plan is to move and buy a property for myself which I will "future proof". Wet-room, easy wheelchair access. The longer I can stay at home the better. If I have a little money put aside I can perhaps pay for carers, equipment and any gadgets and gizmos to help me.

    The more I see of institutional care - state funded or private - the less I want to see.:(
  • greystones wrote: »
    Hi


    We are therefore looking for advice/ideas/tips on how to get/keep below the £23k threshold yet still retain an element of control over the above. Obviously this is to avoid care home costs in the future.


    Consider settling some money/assets into trust. Provided you do not have an interest in possession, and do not go into care in the next two years, this would put the money beyond the means test. If you do not have an IIP but do have a discretionary beneficial interest, this is more of a grey area. Taking such actions so many years before needing care betters your chances.

    Consider also investing into vehicles which are exempt from the means test, such as investment bonds. Such vehicles are, in legal terms, 'insurance policies' and as such are (curiously) exempt from the means test. If you are in England, paragraph 6.004 of CRAG (page 25) refers to this specific point.

    The board won't let me post up the link, but if you Google "CRAG England", you'll quickly get to the page on the DOH website where you can download it.

    NB if you haven't read CRAG, do. It is the DOH instructions to Local Authorities as to what they can and cannot take into account in the means test. If you are in Wales, Scotland, NI, they each have their own CRAG, so make sure you read the right one.

    Hope this helps.
  • lessonlearned
    lessonlearned Posts: 13,337 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    edited 8 October 2012 at 2:09PM
    By the way Margaret - I am so very sorry to hear about your daughter. That must have been (and continue to be) so difficult for you.

    We all expect to lose our parents at some point. Deep down we know that we have a 50-50 chance of outliving our partners but it goes against all the rules of nature to see our children die before we do.

    One of my greatest fears is that my husband's illness turns out to be genetic and that my beloved sons may be at risk.

    People tell me how courageous I have been at dealing with my husband's illness. Maybe so. However, I really don't know how I would cope if one of my boys were to develop the same condition.

    The consultant has assured me that he thinks his illness (a very rare form of Cerebellar Ataxia) is of the non-genetic type - unlike Fredreich's Ataxia which is genetic.

    I only hope he is right. It really just doesn't bear thinking about, so I just push it away from my thoughts.

    If they are at risk, their only hope would lie within the realms of stem cell research. It will be too late for my husband but it may benefit future generations.

    As I've said - none of us know what's round the corner. You are dealt your hand and you just have to play the cards you are given.
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