Care home fees, but what about the spouse at home

Lindagreenacre

My husband has serious cognitive impairment and is having occasional respite care in a private care home (no others in our area).  The time will come before too long when he will need to go into care permanently.  He is self funding and we have each got some savings.  What concerns me is that if a financial assessment is carried out for my husband, what about me?  We own our own home and are comfortable, but do not have a lavish lifestyle by any means. If my husband goes into care, my pension (I paid married woman's stamp for several years) would not support our bills for the home, council tax, energy bills, water etc.  Would I be left high and dry?

Keep_pedalling

You would not be left high and dry, you will entitled to keep some of his pension income to meet your expenditure. What level of savings does he have?   

elsien

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs39-paying-for-care-in-a-care-home-if-you-have-a-partner.pdf

Sea_Shell

In these situations, I understand that's it's not so much about being made to pay, but the wanting to pay for more than will be provided either "free" or once all their money is taken into account (or used).

So, eg top up fees for a better room, or to avoid having to move to a cheaper place ☹️

At that point you have to decide on if and how you'll fund it from YOUR money, home, pension etc.

Lindagreenacre

Keep_pedalling said:

You would not be left high and dry, you will entitled to keep some of his pension income to meet your expenditure. What level of savings does he have?   

More than the £23,250 which is the amount which determines whether you get help or not.  When my mother went into care in 2010, it was £23,250 and it has not increased.

Keep_pedalling

Lindagreenacre said:

Keep_pedalling said:

You would not be left high and dry, you will entitled to keep some of his pension income to meet your expenditure. What level of savings does he have?   

More than the £23,250 which is the amount which determines whether you get help or not.  When my mother went into care in 2010, it was £23,250 and it has not increased.

Sorry I was not trying to pry, but the situation is very different for someone is a few thousand over that figure and someone with a large amount of savings that they can can use to self self fund for several years. In the later case it does not really matter what your income is because you won’t be relying on a LA assessment you can simply go and select your own private care home.

If the savings are likely to run out pretty quickly then how much the person in care will have to contribute will need to take into account the financial needs of their spouse. 

Sarahwithlove

Depending upon how much you have yourself in savings you may be entitled to pension credits as once you are permanently living apart you are classed as single. If you have joint savings I would recommend splitting them so that its his share funding his placement. Once his savings fall below the £23250 threshold then you could keep 50% of any private pensions he has when local authority assess him. 

If you aren't entitled to pension credit now then you would have to live off your savings. Its worth regularly checking your entitlement as your savings will create a tariff for PC purposes so you hopefully wouldn't need to run them right down.