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Question on avoiding residential care costs

24

Comments

  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,571 Forumite
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    edited 5 August 2014 at 6:30PM
    kidmugsy wrote: »
    16% is hardly "very few". Still, if you have to reach 85 first .....

    Exactly - most 60+ people who get into schemes to try to avoid care home fees are never going to need residential care (either because they don't live long enough or are one of the 84%) and can get into other problems as a result of their avoidance plans.

    Of course, there are under-85s in care as well but health is usually a serious issue for them and their life expectancy may not be all that good.

    Ending up with dementia is a different issue - residential care may well become necessary but people can live for many years if they are being well looked after.
  • jamesd
    jamesd Posts: 26,103 Forumite
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    Does anyone really know the answer to avoiding residential care costs?
    Avoiding them is one approach. Another is planning to be able to afford to pay them so you don't end up in the lowest bidder place the council will want to put you in. Often the people who worry about care home costs are also the people who will be able to afford to pay for a good place that delivers better service than the council paid for places.

    Average national cost for a care home without nursing care at private prices is about £636 a week. Varies from £565 in the NE to £770 in London. So from £29,380 to £40,400 a year. Nursing care could add £9,000 a year to those prices.

    A person with say £15,000 in pension income and a property worth £300,000 could afford to pay for that by selling the property and living off the income indefinitely. With reasonable life expectancy it could be done with a property worth £150,000 and planning not to necessarily have money left at death. Both of those are at the lower end accommodation only cost range.
  • greenglide
    greenglide Posts: 3,301 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker Hung up my suit!
    edited 5 August 2014 at 11:01PM
    Think of their quality of life, not the money.
    Exactly.

    Both my mother and my mother in law are now in a care home. One has mobility issues and dementia and the other is very frail.

    One is currently funded in part by local authority pending sale of her house. Fees are about £850 per [STRIKE]month[/STRIKE] week at LA rates (if you negotiate we can all access them), excellent value.

    The choice of care home is up to you (not the LA ) but it needs to be one that is on the LA list. In this area they all seem to be.
  • noh
    noh Posts: 5,817 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    greenglide wrote: »
    Exactly.

    Both my mother and my mother in law are now in a care home. One has mobility issues and dementia and the other is very frail.

    One is currently funded in part by local authority pending sale of her house. Fees are about £850 per month at LA rates (if you negation we can all access them), excellent value.

    The choice of care home is up to you (not the LA ) but it needs to be one that is on the LA list. In this area they all seem to be.

    £850 sounds more like a weekly rate.
  • greenglide
    greenglide Posts: 3,301 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker Hung up my suit!
    Doh!

    That is what I meant. At £850 per month lots of people would be battering their door down!
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    edited 6 August 2014 at 9:35AM
    kidmugsy wrote: »
    Suppose I've reached 75. What are the odds of my ending up "in residential care"?

    I'm interested in this, for obvious reasons - it will be my 79th birthday this coming weekend. DH will be 80 at the end of this year. He's taking me for a long weekend in Bruges for my birthday.

    We haven't contemplated the issue which exercises the OP and, from time to time, re-surfaces on this site. We haven't given any thought at all to our local council 'confiscating' the property we currently live in, because we don't believe this happens.

    Yes, we do pay for some of the things which we used to do with ease. Window-cleaning - we've had that done for a while now. We use Milk&More for doorstep milk deliveries - always had milk on the doorstep, we prefer it that way.

    Up to this summer DH liked to go round the supermarket himself and he was also able to cut the grass. Not safe any more since the dizziness and unsteadiness which was a side-effect of the powerful antibiotics he was given in May as a result of recurring knee infection and risk of septicaemia (which almost killed him in 2008). The last time he tried it, he attempted to dislodge a tree-root with his head. So, we pay a lady gardener and we have groceries delivered which costs extra if we use Tesco, not if we use Ocado. We tend to vary between the two.

    In spite of all the disadvantages, life is still good as long as the two of us are together. When/if there is only one, that's when it will all change.

    A recent report said that older people dread dementia more than any other disease. Yes, put us down for that too. I can contemplate most things, but not losing my marbles.
    [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.
  • kidmugsy
    kidmugsy Posts: 12,709 Forumite
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    I haven't reached 75 and am not particularly likely to. I suppose my likeliest need for "care" would be a stroke rather than dementia. God I hate thinking about these things, but you just need to.
    Free the dunston one next time too.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    In response to PasturesNew above, my experience of doing shifts in various local care homes may be of relevance:

    It was not the case that residents could get up and go to bed when they chose, except in a small number of cases where the residents were very independent and needed no help. I recall having to help the regular staff to get up a certain number of residents starting at 5 am because 'the day staff expect us to have got a number of them up and waiting for breakfast by the time they come on at 7 am'. At another home I was castigated by one of the day staff for 'not getting enough of them up by the time he came on' He could do it, why couldn't I? I forbore to point out that he was twice my size and half my age and I couldn't physically do what he could do! One woman protested at being roused at 5 am. Carers' response was 'Oh, Ivy's in a grumpy mood today'.

    Having frequent cake and tea would not be an inducement to me. Tea maybe, cake no.

    I would hope that things have improved and moved on since I did those shifts in the mid-1990s.
    [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
    kidmugsy wrote: »
    I haven't reached 75 and am not particularly likely to. I suppose my likeliest need for "care" would be a stroke rather than dementia. God I hate thinking about these things, but you just need to.

    A number of people of my acquaintance have had strokes. My first husband had mini-strokes, TIAs, and these would have eventually resulted in dementia because a little bit of brain tissue is destroyed each time. He died before this could happen. A number of other people that I know have had this happen to them. Two other friends recently have had a stroke in their 50s.
    [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.
  • BobQ
    BobQ Posts: 11,181 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    kidmugsy wrote: »
    Suppose I've reached 75. What are the odds of my ending up "in residential care"?

    It depends on how decrepit or ill you are at that time:)
    Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.
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