Huge !0% increase to care home fees

gm0

It's most likely not robbery.  It is a scandal due to cross subsidy of LA funded cases by self funders. 

And the energy costs and pay rises to keep staff with inflation and other choices will be shooting the costs up more.  So the care home does what.  Put the price up.  Or tell the relatives and the LA that they can collect their patients at the end of the month and close the doors - impractical other than in extremis. Putting the LA price up is hard (they don't have it either in the block grant) so it will have to come from something else - roads, libraries etc.  Putting the self funder price up is the balancing ingredient in the system as it has been for ages.

Heaven help you if you live where there aren't any self funders and the LA inputs are below cost.  May not be care home at all or if there is.  Take a long hard look at the state it is in.

For those who don't have a relative in the system. 

Anywhere from £900 - £2000 per week is going rate for a nursing home bed.  Plus your NHS nursing care subsidy funding to the home if you qualify for needed nursing.  Don't know about Dementia but I guess the minimum would be a bit more than I quote.

Nobody gets NHS funding (CHC) full funding as a noticeable % of the total. You are a lottery winner in the sense that you lost the health lottery to be that ill and impaired to qualify on all dimensions.   A few terminally ill patients get it so they can say it actually exists and issue it at low total cost.  But few long stayers will get a sniff.  Metrics. And a lot of wasted effort for multi-disciplinary teams to shuffle a bit of LA health spend to a bit of NHS spend.  Make it up you could not.  A tiny and genuinely needy group do benefit from the process and it is just a bureaucratic festival of waste disappointment and frustration for the rest.

It's bad enough being unlucky enough to need care.  Paying for your own care if you can is OK by me as a principle  (Political views about socialising that fully vary of course).  But paying for your own and other people who can't pay - without the rest of society chipping in.  Selected to pay for it by being "ill enough to need it yourself" for the special extra situational tax.   That is not OK.  Not - as they used to say - cricket.

Clueless56

That's not quite correct, gm0, depending on the acuity of the person's dementia, they could be cared for at home, or in a residential care home bed or, if more severe, in a nursing home bed and the costs will be in the range you quoted.  CHC funding is for people with long-term complex needs and isn't the only Health funding that people may get.  Where people are assessed as having nursing needs, they will receive Funded Nursing Care payments of c£200 p/w towards their care home costs.  

Sunnylifeover50plan

Quite devastating on a number of levels for the OP and many others. Yet the issue of social care quality and it's funding is a tin can that has been kicked down the road by all political parties. 

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/how-much-does-dementia-care-cost

dunstonh

Sunnylifeover50plan said:

Quite devastating on a number of levels for the OP and many others. Yet the issue of social care quality and it's funding is a tin can that has been kicked down the road by all political parties. 

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/how-much-does-dementia-care-cost

Largely because it is going to cost a fortune to provide and half the country are being subsidised by the Government already and the other half are being taxed to hell.

elsien

Properly integrated health and social care would be a bonus but that's another can that keeps getting kicked down the road as well. 

GibbsRule_No3.

Crikey for £70,000 a year you could hire someone to live in, if there was the room. Am I right in thinking that the State Pension is also reduced due to him being in the home?  If so you would also keep that towards the persons pay.

Linton

GibbsRule_No3. said:

Crikey for £70,000 a year you could hire someone to live in, if there was the room. Am I right in thinking that the State Pension is also reduced due to him being in the home?  If so you would also keep that towards the persons pay.

The problem is you would need to hire more than one person.  Plus of course there are the "hotel" costs - eg food, cleaning, heating  etc.

State Pension is not reduced for people in care homes.  However most of the income is used to pay the costs leaving them with pocket money for minor personal expenditure.

diystarter7

GibbsRule_No3. said:

Crikey for £70,000 a year you could hire someone to live in, if there was the room. Am I right in thinking that the State Pension is also reduced due to him being in the home?  If so you would also keep that towards the persons pay.

Many feel for the OP
It is not a fair system by a long shot.
Every older person I know inc me saved up for our own properties, built on them, did them up to further advance our kids, grandkids etc rather than go for coucil property, or keep on remortgaging the property to live the good life
Not fair at all

Not everyone needs care home etc thankfully but imo,I'd be prepared to pay extra taxes as long as the government was sorting out the befits sytems and being fair to those that worked and did not thrwo away their money and kept saving to look after their own home in order not to take up a council property.

I do not know what the real solution is but there must be something better than what we have

Thanks

Pollycat

Linton said:

GibbsRule_No3. said:

Crikey for £70,000 a year you could hire someone to live in, if there was the room. Am I right in thinking that the State Pension is also reduced due to him being in the home?  If so you would also keep that towards the persons pay.

The problem is you would need to hire more than one person.  Plus of course there are the "hotel" costs - eg food, cleaning, heating  etc.

State Pension is not reduced for people in care homes.  However most of the income is used to pay the costs leaving them with pocket money for minor personal expenditure.

Isn't this only the case if all residential care is funded by the local council?
i.e. all income goes towards care fees leaving PEA (Personal Expenses Allowance) of £25.65 minimum per week.

At £70K per year fees, it sounds like the OP's partner is self-funding.

It's quite a while since my parent was self-funding in a residential care home so I may be wrong.
IIRC, I was his DWP appointee and all his benefits came into a bank account I had to specially set up in my name (not his).
I was then responsible for paying the care home fees.

Linton

Pollycat said:

Linton said:

GibbsRule_No3. said:

Crikey for £70,000 a year you could hire someone to live in, if there was the room. Am I right in thinking that the State Pension is also reduced due to him being in the home?  If so you would also keep that towards the persons pay.

The problem is you would need to hire more than one person.  Plus of course there are the "hotel" costs - eg food, cleaning, heating  etc.

State Pension is not reduced for people in care homes.  However most of the income is used to pay the costs leaving them with pocket money for minor personal expenditure.

Isn't this only the case if all residential care is funded by the local council?
i.e. all income goes towards care fees leaving PEA (Personal Expenses Allowance) of £25.65 minimum per week.

At £70K per year fees, it sounds like the OP's partner is self-funding.

It's quite a while since my parent was self-funding in a residential care home so I may be wrong.
IIRC, I was his DWP appointee and all his benefits came into a bank account I had to specially set up in my name (not his).
I was then responsible for paying the care home fees.

Yes true, if one is self funded the money could come from anywhere.