Social care cap 'to be set at £75,000'

McKneff

noh wrote: »

You mised this bit
The BBC also understands the threshold for means-tested support will rise from £23,000 to £110,000

But if i have a house worth say £150K I would still have to sell as I dont have a spare £40K hanging about.

Errata

Mojisola wrote: »

This will only relate to the "care" part of a residential home's bill. The cost of the room, meals, clothes washing, etc, will still have to be paid for by the resident.

I have no idea what that would total (except Homes generally spend about £3 a day on a residents food), but wonder if the total would be covered by the SRP and AA?

C_Mababejive

noh wrote: »

No there was not.

Well idont dispute your assertion but i do remember growing up in the 70's and seeing "old peoples homes" which were local authority establishments. How were these funded?

le_loup

They were means tested, just like now.

marathonic

Although the idea is going to cost the younger generation significantly through increased income tax, I can see some reasoning behind it.

If the state provided such a cap and current figures suggest that 5% of people end up in a retirement home, retirement care will cost a total of £75,000 for every 20 people.

Let’s face it, the majority of people will not worry about nursing care costs until they retire, or close to it, at which point, paying into a private pension may no longer be a sensible option.

Saving £75,000 isn’t an option if you leave nursing home costs until within 10 years of retirement but the scheme only costs an average of £3,750 given the fact that only 1 in 20 end up in a nursing home. This is assuming that every person entering a retirement home survives long enough to surpass the £75,000 cap which will not be the case – so let’s reduce the average cost to £3,000.

Given the removal of uncertainty around nursing home costs, it would be very easy for an insurance company to give you an option, on retirement, of forgoing some of your tax-free lump sum in return for the payment of your retirement home costs. Given the expected return on investment between retirement age and the age you’d be expected to enter a nursing home, the cost to you should be minimal.

Looking at the figures, if the insurance company were to assume that you are retiring at 67 and will enter the nursing home at 87, and assuming a return on investment of 2% after inflation and their charges, they’d only need you to give up £2,000 of your lump sum in return for covering your retirement home costs, should you need them.

philadam

jimmy_f wrote: »

1.) If my mother is still a resident in her care home when the new cap comes in will the fact that she has already paid over £75,000 mean that she will be "paid up" or will it take effect from the date of the new cap or will she have to pay a further £75,000 on top of everything she has paid already. Hope that makes sense !

My understanding from what I saw and read yesterday is that it won't be backdated and the clock starts ticking so to speak in 2017 when the scheme is introduced. Realistically this means funding over and above the £75000 for anyone is unlikely to commence until 2019 at the earliest.

Trying to be realistic this is a massive issue and requires a huge amount of resources. If it were introduced in a form that was fairer to all I'm not sure how the country would afford it. At least there has been a start made, but there is a long way to go on this issue and there is no easy answer.

My mum is currently paying £36000 a year to stay in residential care and being very philosophical about it I feel she is very lucky to have the funds to make a choice. She is fortunate to have been born in an era where job security, rising house prices and the ability to save were easier to achieve. It's going to be much more of a challenge for the current younger generation when they become old.

andym123_2

The summary at the top of the thread is pretty skimpy. There's a fuller one on the Department of Health's website:

[EDIT: I would include a URL but the system software won't let me]

It says (among other things) that:

From April 2015, no one will have to sell their home in their lifetime to pay for residential care, with those unable to afford the fees given the right to defer paying during their lifetime.

The problem, as I see it, is that these provisions only apply to the bare bones minimum care (eg if you are at home, a carer whizzing round for a half an hour or so in the morning, and then half an hour or so in the evening, plus meals on wheels) so anything above and beyone that you still have to pay for. So a step in the right direction, possibly, but it still leaves a lot of uncertainty about how much you might have to pay.

C_Mababejive

You see this highlights one of the major failings of British Society.

How many Asian/Chinese people do you see crammed into some squalid private care home,sat in a wing backed chair staring at the TV and eating poor quality rations? Not many eh..its all white Brits.

And why? Because other cultures are far wiser. They all live together or closely in extended families and offer safety in numbers and mutual support.

Mojisola

C_Mababejive wrote: »

You see this highlights one of the major failings of British Society.

How many Asian/Chinese people do you see crammed into some squalid private care home,sat in a wing backed chair staring at the TV and eating poor quality rations? Not many eh..its all white Brits.

And why? Because other cultures are far wiser. They all live together or closely in extended families and offer safety in numbers and mutual support.

If all families in Asian/Chinese cultures were perfect, story-book families then that would be a very pretty picture.

There are also Asian/Chinese elders who are stuck in a corner, badly fed, poorly cared for and insulted daily by resentful family carers but no-one outside the family sees that.