Nursing care home costs for my father

Hi,

New here. Hope I have posted this in the right forum!

Hoping for some advice please. I'll outline the situation and his circumstances first, and then the question which is about care home fees, means tested benefits and how his financial circumstance affects this.

My father had a stroke over 2 years ago, and has been living in a nursing care home for a little over 18 months now. He is quite disabled as a result, he requires a sling and a hoist to get in and out of bed, has to have food pureed and be fed, be washed by a carer, is mostly bedbound but allowed some time in a special supportive wheelchair for 2-3hrs a day if his health allows him to be up. He is tired and weak so experiences some mental confusion, but for the most part has retained his faculties so still has his sense of humour, his full range of emotions and is able to communicate well when lucid. He is coping as well as can be expected, he tries hard not to burden others with his problems and make their day pleasant, despite his situation. He is someone I look up to and am proud of. Sadly he will always need this level of care and won't return home.

My sister and I are full LPOAs for him, but try to involve him in the conversation and decision making. We took our eye off the ball, and didn't realise how quickly the cash in his current account would get eaten up by the care home costs. He has now run out of cash so we need to explore the options as to how to continue paying his care home costs.

Summary of his financial circumstances.
He has no cash left.
He owns a 2/3 share in a property with his partner. The property is not lived in by either of them, it is rented out and he receives a small monthly income from this.
He has a collective retirement account in excess of 100k, which is his pension. This is uncrystallised at the moment.
An annuity is not an option, the combination of yield from the annuity and rental income will not cover the fees, fees are circa 4k a month.

I assume the next step is to get him means tested to see if he qualifies for some of the care home costs to be covered by the local council.

He is keen to protect his pension so as for there to be something left for his children (2 more of us), he had hoped there would be pension and house, but that seems unlikely now.

The question - Would his pension be considered as part of his capital when it comes to an assessment/means testing?

Thanks for reading, sorry for the long post. Thought best to give a full outline. Any advice appreciated, I'm not too savvy at this stuff.

Thanks

Jamie