If care homes are charging £1k+ per week and carers are paid minimum wage, where is the money going?

elsien

Sea_Shell said:

elsien said:

Bradden said:

I asked a friend who manages a care home the same questions recently.. My understanding is that the paying residents subsidise those funded by the government as the money they psy is insufficent.

Being slightly picky, it's what the local authority is willing/able to pay, not the government. 

For someone who is not a self-funder, their pension minus the £25 allowance goes towards the care home fees. The local authority pay the rest. Family can be asked to make a third party top up if the fees in a preferred home are higher than the LA will pay but there is no obligation and many people can't afford it.
Local authorities were strapped for cash pre-covid and some are now on the verge of bankruptcy. The system is broke, hence Boris's announcement yesterday.

ETA - health funding is different but full health funding can be as rare as hen’s teeth. 

In reply to the £4200 a week care home fees, she must be moving to the equivalent of the Ritz. I'm in the Midlands rather than London but the care home that charges more because they accept complex needs/challenging behaviour that no-one else wants is £1300 a week, give or take.  I suspect there is more to that story than has been disclosed. 

In your example, would the resident get to keep more of their pension, once the new cap was reached (for personal care) and if so, would the pressure still remain to keep paying from their pension or on family to make top up contributions, to avoid being moved (dumped) elsewhere??

No idea. The government has given the plan in very broad brushstrokes. There are many (actually, most) details still to be ironed out and shared. 

However my guess would be that things would stay as they are now to go towards the cost of the "hotel" element - it seems reasonable that people continue to contribute via their pension towards their food, drink and utilities as they would if they were still living at home. 

Sea_Shell

elsien said:

Sea_Shell said:

elsien said:

Bradden said:

I asked a friend who manages a care home the same questions recently.. My understanding is that the paying residents subsidise those funded by the government as the money they psy is insufficent.

Being slightly picky, it's what the local authority is willing/able to pay, not the government. 

For someone who is not a self-funder, their pension minus the £25 allowance goes towards the care home fees. The local authority pay the rest. Family can be asked to make a third party top up if the fees in a preferred home are higher than the LA will pay but there is no obligation and many people can't afford it.
Local authorities were strapped for cash pre-covid and some are now on the verge of bankruptcy. The system is broke, hence Boris's announcement yesterday.

ETA - health funding is different but full health funding can be as rare as hen’s teeth. 

In reply to the £4200 a week care home fees, she must be moving to the equivalent of the Ritz. I'm in the Midlands rather than London but the care home that charges more because they accept complex needs/challenging behaviour that no-one else wants is £1300 a week, give or take.  I suspect there is more to that story than has been disclosed. 

In your example, would the resident get to keep more of their pension, once the new cap was reached (for personal care) and if so, would the pressure still remain to keep paying from their pension or on family to make top up contributions, to avoid being moved (dumped) elsewhere??

No idea. The government has given the plan in very broad brushstrokes. There are many (actually, most) details still to be ironed out and shared. 

However my guess would be that things would stay as they are now to go towards the cost of the "hotel" element - it seems reasonable that people continue to contribute towards their food, drink and utilities as they would if they were still living at home. 

Ah, yes.  The devil most certainly will be in the detail 😈😈😈

I think people are going to be sorely disappointed when family homes still need to be sold to maintain a quality of care expected for their loved ones!   Cap or no cap!

T.T.D

Corporation tax per year per over gross income and capital income, Plus local authority fees and taxes.

Water rates on a business meter.

Electricity rates.

Gas Rates

Business Phone (some nursing homes have upto 4 separate incoming and outgoing lines) on one account. 

Mobile phone fee’s (if work phone are required) 

Business broadband.

Yearly gas safe inspections

yearly Accountant fees

yearly maintenance of building and grounds contracts.

Building and Grounds insurance.

Multi vehicle insurance (travel bus and company pool cars) 

public liability insurance

Medical negligence insurance 

equipment repair and maintenance and replacement.

Training for employed staff fee’s (Data officers, safety coordinator for safe systems of work, hygein, manual handling and risk assessment specialty equipment use etc)

fire extinguisher replacements and fire alarm testing and smoke alarm certification and inspection

produce.

hygein products.

medical supplies.

office supplies

server fees and server maintenance (if a server is onsite)

computers their maintenance and subscription fees for Microsoft office 360 annually and other applications that are required to store data efficiently and securely.

Laundry fee’s (if outsourced)

television license fee

And miscellaneous cost to replace cutlery, towels, linen ombudsmans fines ICO fines etc.

Then theres staff:

staff wages

agency fee’s

legal fee’s

Probably more.

castle96

elsien said:

castle96 said:

Re the latest Gov changes... I am interested in the split (a generaliation I know) between Social Care costs and Residential costs. In 3 years time (1 year after a Gen election so the possible new Gov may recind) the contribution to Social Care (only), will commence (supposedly). If someone was being charged £1k p/wk, how much (or % in general), would be SC and how much RC? RC costs would/may be, still a problem. I am sure most people 'think' that RC is the TOTAL cost of living in a care home.

That has yet to be ascertained as care homes don't break it down like that at present. The Dilnot review suggested between 7 and 10K a year for the "hotel" aspect but that was back in 2011 and things have changed a little since then. 

so the majority is for residential (or yet to be decided)

lr1277

Some of the figures listed in this thread are interesting. The following may provide some perspective.
About 3 years ago, a relative needed to stay in a private hospital for a few months.
If memory serves, the 1st hospital cost approx £20k per week. On top was the cost of the daily visit by the consultant.
After a month, the consultant arranged a move to a brand new hospital which was much closer to said relative’s home. I think the consultant may have changed the specification of the stay slightly, but from my point of view, the care was the same. The consultant may have got a discount because the hospital had just been opened. Again, if memory serves, the cost was £12k per week plus the consultant’s cost.
The benefits are there are doctors and nurses on site 24/7. There is a pharmacy and pharmacist on site, instead of getting medicine from the surgery and then a retail pharmacist. Meals are cooked on site. There is an en-suite. Relative had help with personal needs like showering, going to the toilet etc.

Edited to remove irrelevant information.

Stodd101

My mother lived in one for 4 years self funded, we were very fortunate that the fees were covered from her income, at the time she went in (local authority social worker based at hospital said she could not go home) I asked for her contract to be under the local authority (previously had home care via this method) It was agreed via LA and care home she could go in at their rates and us pay direct to the home, not what I wanted but went along as it was a distressing time.

Never thought anymore about it until 2018 when the home put her fees up massively, I went back to LA and was told they did not do these contracts anymore, I had to appeal and fight for it as that was what had been agreed, but to make it easier for them I agreed to a contract with the home, turns out at this point the LA's were in a blind panic because the cap on care only applied to people under LA contracts not those self funding direct with the home, so my LA was under the impression they would be massively out of pocket once the cap came in as they would have to make up the difference once the lifetime allowance was reached.

I won my appeal but lost mum last year, but grateful she was in a happy and loving home, but I just wonder if this is still what the LA's believe as mums was classed as social care, so is the new proposal just nursing care? or both would be interesting to see the details of the proposal when it comes out.

elsien

It will apply to both residential and nursing care. 

Kim_kim

Exodi said:

I'm not convinced on the overheads justification, as you don't see Premier Inn charging £1500 a week, yet they will have loosely similar overheads.

Just posted on the BBC now (see below) - I think that care home probably needs to go on uswitch if overheads are the justification for charging £4,200 a week?

Premier Inn do not cook & serve 3 meals a day & snacks/beverages.  They don’t provide 24/7 care.
They don’t assist with toileting, washing & bathing. 

They don’t provide activities. 

Yes they both provide furnished bedrooms, after that they are very different. 

Malthusian

Sea_Shell said:

I think people are going to be sorely disappointed when family homes still need to be sold to maintain a quality of care expected for their loved ones!   Cap or no cap!

Probably. People are appalling. The guy quoted in the BBC article who wanted to move his own sister to somewhere twice as cheap to preserve somebody's inheritance and her relatives' free hotel (unchallenged by the Beeb) being a case in point.

That said, the Tories have an unprecedented amount of political capital, an unassailable majority and a once-in-a-century excuse to do whatever they want - and they still haven't succeeded in creating a system which protects well-off people's inheritances by taxing the hoi polloi, as the media keeps demanding. Most people will not get anywhere near the cap (average stay in a care home is two years with a long tail) and even for those that go on for years and years in care, nobody has any idea whether they will hit the cap either, due to lack of clarity over what counts.

What the proposal actually amounts to is a 10% increase to income tax (for the average employee) to bail out the NHS (again); less a care revolution and more Gordon Brown mark 2.

Keep_pedalling

Malthusian said:

Sea_Shell said:

I think people are going to be sorely disappointed when family homes still need to be sold to maintain a quality of care expected for their loved ones!   Cap or no cap!

Probably. People are appalling. The guy quoted in the BBC article who wanted to move his own sister to somewhere twice as cheap to preserve somebody's inheritance and her relatives' free hotel (unchallenged by the Beeb) being a case in point.

That said, the Tories have an unprecedented amount of political capital, an unassailable majority and a once-in-a-century excuse to do whatever they want - and they still haven't succeeded in creating a system which protects well-off people's inheritances by taxing the hoi polloi, as the media keeps demanding. Most people will not get anywhere near the cap (average stay in a care home is two years with a long tail) and even for those that go on for years and years in care, nobody has any idea whether they will hit the cap either, due to lack of clarity over what counts.

What the proposal actually amounts to is a 10% increase to income tax (for the average employee) to bail out the NHS (again); less a care revolution and more Gordon Brown mark 2.

Those affected by the NI increase will include the poorly paid care workers and will increase the costs of their employers, yet the very well paid can avoid a lot of Income tax and NI by pumping large chunks of their salaries into pensions which many also use to avoid  IHT. 

If we are all supposed to be in this this together why are well off pensioners like myself not having to contribute to this extra tax?