care costs

Pollycat

elsien said:

There is a difference though between spending your money to have a decent quality of life in your retirement and deliberately getting shot of it "just in case." 

SouthCoastBoy said:

elsien said:

There is a difference though between spending your money to have a decent quality of life in your retirement and deliberately getting shot of it "just in case." 

Yes, I won't be deliberately overspending just in case I need to go into a care home, as how do you know when that would be. If you deliberately overspend you may run out of money. Why worry about a care home, it's something that may never happen.

Worse is those people who ask how their parents can preserve their 'inheritance' instead of paying for their own care.

On a thread asking that, one poster said these type of threads were becoming tiresome and suggested that Martin covered 'deprivation of capital' in one of his shows.
That whole thread appears to have been removed.

Arthurian

If you go into a local authority-funded care home, and it's awful, can you decide to move to another care home in a different local authority area?

Farway

Arthurian said:

If you go into a local authority-funded care home, and it's awful, can you decide to move to another care home in a different local authority area?

Possible, but the big problem as we found was getting your "old" LA to agree to fund in another LA area

We wanted to have my mother near us, but never did get it resolved before she died

I suspect you would need a very good reason, apart from "It's awful" to move to another LA area

Arthurian

Thanks, Farway.  It seems very much like prison, then.

elsien

Local authorities have contracts with care homes and are extremely reluctant to fund outside of the contracted homes.
Plus they are responsible for reviewing your care and making sure it is appropriate which is  harder and more time consuming to do if you are out of the area.
it is possible to move outside of area if there is a valid reason, such as being closer to family. But a move to an area that you have no link with it all? Not going be happening unless you are a self funder.

[Deleted User]

I believe the assumption that all LA care homes are bad is misplaced and unfair on those people that work in them to provide a good level of care. There have been plenty of examples of private care homes behaving badly

elsien

I also think when people refer to local authority care homes, they don’t realise that there are very few care homes still in local authority control anymore. Most of them have been sold on or taken over by private companies so what they actually mean is local authority funded care homes which isn’t quite the same thing.
There are indeed some very good stuff across this sector, the difference is that they tend to have lower staffing level, so there’s less scope for people to go out even to the local shop or to do individual activities. Whether private or authority funded, the main issue is still the funding of social care and the impact that has on people. I have seen some very expensive, very nice looking homes which have been failing and vice versa, but if you care is paid for at the lowest possible rate, that is going to have an impact however good the staff are. 

Pollycat

[Deleted User] said:

I believe the assumption that all LA care homes are bad is misplaced and unfair on those people that work in them to provide a good level of care. There have been plenty of examples of private care homes behaving badly

I don't assume that all LA care homes are bad.
I base my opinion on the 2 care/nursing homes that my Mum was unfortunate enough to be in for the last couple of years of her life.
Within a 6 month period she was the subject of 2 safeguarding investigations - 1 in each home.
The 2nd care home did not act in accordance with their processes and procedures after a fall at night. 2 days later she had another fall and was dead a week later.
The care home gave us her belongings.
Half the clothes did not belong to her.
A hairbrush clearly labelled with someone else's name was included.
The care home consistently failed to perform in accordance with their processes and procedures in a number of areas.

My complaint against the care home and LA was upheld by the Ombudsman.

I know that the majority of people employed in care homes do provide a good level of care.
A pity my Mum didn't benefit from that.