Deprivation of Assets ?

lisyloo

Spendless said:

My Grandmother lived 8 years in a care home dying last year at almost 99. She had a long term friend in there who was in for around 7 years before death. At the point I started dating my husband his Grandmother was already in care and died 6.5 years later, when she was in her early 80s.

I would be careful of the assumption that you won't go into care or won't last long in there and I'd consider if you would be happy spending several years in LA funded care. Plan for the worst but hope for the best. 

You may be going back some time there :-:smile:
There is now a lot of technology that can help people stay in their homes longer. I'm talking about things like pendant alarms, watches, crash mats to detect someone falling out of bed, motion detectors that alarm when no movement and cameras.
This won't help with people who can't make safe decisions, but it can keep certain people out of homes for longer these days.

It's difficult. I keep being told by my IFA to plan for 95/100 when the previous generation are living until 80.

Spendless

lisyloo said:

Spendless said:

My Grandmother lived 8 years in a care home dying last year at almost 99. She had a long term friend in there who was in for around 7 years before death. At the point I started dating my husband his Grandmother was already in care and died 6.5 years later, when she was in her early 80s.

I would be careful of the assumption that you won't go into care or won't last long in there and I'd consider if you would be happy spending several years in LA funded care. Plan for the worst but hope for the best. 

You may be going back some time there :-:smile:
There is now a lot of technology that can help people stay in their homes longer. I'm talking about things like pendant alarms, watches, crash mats to detect someone falling out of bed, motion detectors that alarm when no movement and cameras.
This won't help with people who can't make safe decisions, but it can keep certain people out of homes for longer these days.

It's difficult. I keep being told by my IFA to plan for 95/100 when the previous generation are living until 80.

In the case of my Grandmother not really. She entered care home in Feb 2015 and died last year in  Feb 2023 which was exactly 5 weeks short of her 99th birthday. She had dementia.

Her friend who did come in due to falls etc went into the home slightly after Nan did and died a year or so before she dd.

My husband's grandmother was in care from prior to May 97 to her death in Nov 2003. She also had dementia. 

lisyloo

As I said the new technology won't help people who are unable to make safe decisions e.g. dementia.

There is a wide variety. Some people got to homes for a few days (my FIL was 11 days before he died), other 15 years, but on average it's a little over 2.

It's very difficult financially to plan for this.
Personally I'd use my home to fund it, which takes it right out of the pension planning equation.

It's difficult as most of us don't know if we'll die at 66 or 96 or whether we'll need care.

sheramber

It is not necessarily the surviving  spouse who needs to go into care.

Nobody inherits until the parent dies.

If one parent goes into care first then their named assets will be counted  as capital and will be used to calculate self funding.

So there may be little or nothing left  to inherit from that parent.

lisyloo

sheramber said:

It is not necessarily the surviving  spouse who needs to go into care.

Nobody inherits until the parent dies.

If one parent goes into care first then their named assets will be counted  as capital and will be used to calculate self funding.

So there may be little or nothing left  to inherit from that parent.

If the estate is small then perhaps. 
With an average house, a single person on average will not burn through the estate. 

Average house price is £300k
Average price - say £1K per week
Average stay 26 months = £117K

Of course there is a lot of variance from average and if both need care then its a different story and of course some people will stay for longer.(and conversely some a lot less).

elsien

Technology can indeed make a difference to some people. 

However if your sensor mat or falls monitor shows  that you have fallen you then need someone to come and pick you up. That’s the people bit of care packages that tend to be more problematic, particularly at night. 

lisyloo

elsien said:

Technology can indeed make a difference to some people. 

However if your sensor mat or falls monitor shows  that you have fallen you then need someone to come and pick you up. That’s the people bit of care packages that tend to be more problematic, particularly at night. 

Works best when there are family within travelling distance.
When my Dad had a pendant the 24/7 call centre held 3 phone numbers for family members so I put myself, my brother and my sister on there. If all 3 failed then they would call emergency services.
We also had a key box fitted by the council for free and the call center had the PIN number to give to emergency services (although when my Dad put the chain on the police just broke the door down).

I'm not saying it's a silver bullet.
What I'm saying is that for some people (mentally able) and perhaps with family close by it might stave off going into full time care for a number of months and for some that may be the remainder of their life.
Most people want to remain independent and don't overlook the fact that local authorities will only put people into full time care if there are really no alternatives as it's expensive. If you have money you can do whatever you like, if you are dependent on the tax payer you'll get what the local authority deem necessary and that's a safety net subsistence level.
It is what we all want it to be as taxpayers but not as we'd like it to be when we are the recipient.

elsien

I agree at staying at home as long as possible - part of my job involves arguing for that if it's what people want. But I primarily work with people who don't have a local (or any support network) and the night time care is limited and very inflexible. That is probably a large part of the difference. 

In my grandmother's case, the LPA took me off as a local contact because they felt that if she had a fall she would need an ambulance to check her over anyway so the system was changed to all emergency calls went straight to 999. The emergency services started to complain about unnecessary call outs and she ended up as a self-funder in care quite soon after that.