Social Care Assessment and Financing Advice Needed

horse_legs

I'm looking for some advice about finances for my Mum's care needs. She suffers from dementia, with poor mobility and we're looking to increase the amount of home care she gets. My Dad is her primary carer, but needs more help. Currently we have a private carer who comes in once a week. We have arranged for a care assessment from the council and they've also sent us a link for a financial assessment.

As I understand it, if you have savings over the £23,250 you have to pay entirely for social care, down to about £14,000 you get some assistance and below that it's funded by the council. As she has savings a bit above the top threshold she'll be self-funded, to start with at least. We could just manage this privately, but as others have said, it seems valuable to get the care assessment anyway so she's on the books, and they may be able to get more guidance on available resources. So I have a couple of questions:

1. Is it still worth doing the financial assessment even if she'll be self-funding to start with?

2. I understand that it's only her own savings and income that they take into consideration, even though she is married and their living costs are shared. She also gets Attendance Allowance, though that's paid into my Dad's account and he pays the carer's invoices. They have no joint accounts. That leads to a rather cynical conclusion - that it would be better to pay for as much as possible from her savings, until they're depleted to the threshold needed to get financial assistance and meanwhile boost my Dad's savings. Does this logic make sense? Is it legit? Should we be thinking about any other strategies?

Thanks for your thoughts.

elsien

Does your mum still have capacity around your finances and if not is there a power-of-attorney in place?

If she doesn’t have capacity  then you have an obligation to act in her best interests. Using up her money while boosting your dad’s is questionable in that context. Either way you  also need to read up on deliberate deprivation of assets.

With regards to the assessment, yes, it is still worth doing because your dad can have an assessment of his needs as a carer at the same time which could lead to exploration of other options, such as a day centre or respite, for example. 

Albermarle

. Is it still worth doing the financial assessment even if she'll be self-funding to start with?

Yes to this.

Otherwise you have not really posted in the right forum. You could try this one.

Disability money matters — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Keep_pedalling

Does she get carers allowance? If not you should apply it is not means tested.

LHW99

Hopefully she gets the higher rate of Attendance Allowance? If not, and her needs have increased, this also should be reassessed.

OutdoorQueen

Are they claiming the council tax reduction?  Horrible title but worth claiming, and fairly easy to claim.  Contact the district council.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/severe-mental-impairment-dementia-council-tax-rebate/

horse_legs

Many thanks for the helpful responses. We'll certainly look up the benefits recommendations. The hardest question, I think, remains the financial management.

Does your mum still have capacity around your finances and if not is there a power-of-attorney in place?

If she doesn’t have capacity  then you have an obligation to act in her best interests. Using up her money while boosting your dad’s is questionable in that context. Either way you  also need to read up on deliberate deprivation of assets.

Yes, we have LPA in place and I agree with your concerns here. My mum is not totally without mental capacity, but her working memory difficulties mean she's not capable of managing finances or making strategic decisions. I do however discuss all financial decisions with her before acting. I'm very conscious of acting in her best interests - it's just that it's not necessarily easy to determine those, nor to decide what she might herself have thought in times of greater mental clarity. In this case working out the proper ethical (and legal) frameworks is essential. 

At the moment, as I said, we have her AA payments coming in to my Dad's account and he pays the private carer's invoices. As we get more care in, these costs will outstrip the AA income. Meanwhile my Mum's limited pension comes in each month and accumulates in a savings account. This is the context that prompts the questions. I've just had a quick look at deliberate deprivation of assets (and am about to read more) - a serious business, thanks for the lead.

elsien

That extra context helps. Using her pension and AA towards her care costs would seem to me to be reasonable in the circumstances. It would be if there was money that she would normally be getting that was then diverted to dad's savings instead that would be questionable if it was changed from their usual custom and practice. Or joint money that stops being joint and starts going to dad, If that makes sense? 
Sounds like you are on top of things but without the context it can be easy to get the wrong end of the stick.