Coping with care home fees

Get proper advice from Age UK, Help the Aged or your local CAB. Your husband can claim AA for himself, you can't claim it for him. If he has savings over the threshold he will be expected to use them, along with any other income he has, to pay his nursing home fees. You save for your old age expenses, these are his. You have your own pension, I assume, for your monthly expenses, hopefully You have access to savings you've both saved that you can also use. Care home fees are astronomical indeed, personally I think all of them should be government funded for the first few years then be self sufficient, with trustees, going forward. Having savings or a house to sell means you can pick a really good home, if you need one, in old age and not have to settle for one thats underfunded and understaffed.

Witzend

M0nica

Macgran43

My monthly bills to stay in my spacious home add up to approximately £1500 This includes paying a cleaner and gardener . I would think it fair that I should pay this amount to a Care Home. Nursing care is free. A local Nursing Home is charging £6000 per month. For this I would have a small bedroom with en-suite. Someone must be making a large profit.

Anything but. Running a Care home is very expensive. To begin with there is the cost of staff.

When visiting a relative in a care home, there was a practice fire alarm just as we arrived and we had to wait in the entrance area where staff gathered. DH and I reckoned that there was one member of staff there for every resident. There were carers, cleaners, laundry staff, catering staff, maintenance staff, gardeners, as well as admin and a few nurses.

Add on to your £1,500 the cost of employing someone full time to live with you to cook and do your laundry, maintin your home, do the shopping. Add in insurance costs, the costs of all the specialised equipment they have to have and have serviced regularly, then there is regulation, all the expense in checking staff, training them, and so so on.

You will find by the time you have added up all those costs, the 'profit' in that £6,000 is not that great. You need to remember that while nursing care may be free, most people in care homes, as distinct from nursing homes, which will be much more expensive, do not need nursing care, just care, so do not qualify for free nursing.

If you work out the rate per day of care home fees, and compare it to the cost of bed and breakfast in a reasonable hotel locally, it may not seem so excessive.

A care home provides all meals and drinks, often a lot of help with washing, dressing and ‘toileting’ as they like to call it, all laundry (often a lot, especially if there’s dementia) and usually very high levels of heating during the colder months.

Plus, usually, someone on hand 24/7 to help, reassure anyone confused or agitated, etc.

I know care homes have a lot of outgoings to pay for but many cut these to the bone.

My Mum spent several months so in such a home where they had the cheapest, thin white bread, slimy cheap ham, that dreadful cheap squash that is almost colourless. All budget range stuff. Heating was never sufficient and they got one bath or shower a week and the water was barely warm.

After visiting 14 homes I found a wonderful one with all homecooked food and proper bread and butter.

Hi Penguin2024
What you tell us about is outrageous
I had no idea it could be this bad
I think maybe we need to organise a petition so that it’s discussed in parliament ?
I don’t think things will ever change otherwise
I don’t want to do politics but this is the ugliest face of capitalism

Penguin24 I have every sympathy for your plight, but running a care home in central London faces many problems that do not apply further away.

To begin with costs are much higher rents and rates are far higher than elsewhere and it is likely that the building is leasehold not freehold. Also the homes will need to pay higher than average wages.

Carers are usually on the minimum wage but in London where there are so many better paid jobs, care homes will have to be prepared to pay higher wages and even then the quality of their staff will be not brilliant.

I have twice been responsible for relatives in care, not in London, but in the south east, both in areas where unemployment was high with few job opportunities and the quality of staff was excellent because jobs were competed for so the managers could choose the best and then they stayed and lower costs made the fees acceptable

I now live in the Oxford hinterland, an area of high employment, lots of job opportunities and high wages and, like London, care homes around here are very expensive and have staffing problems.

Doodledog

kittylester

No they don't. It is solely savings in his name or joint savings.

These things are so very unfair, IMO. Apart from the social and geographical anomalies, technically all money in a marriage is shared, so why should couples be penalised for not separating finances? Surely there is no right and wrong when it comes to organising money? Some people prefer to keep separate savings and others to pool everything.

Am I right in understanding that in the event of one partner needing care, couple A, who have separate bank accounts would be charged less for care than couple B, who have joint ones, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

You’ve got the wrong end of the stick I’m afraid.

In the case of joint savings only half of it can be taken for care costs. The assumption is that with joint savings each account holder owns 50%.

I was looking for a care home in London recently and visited seven care homes before choosing one. Those with places available that were rated 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission in my parent's local area cost between £1450 and £2250 per week. Yet the care they provided really didn't impress me that much.
The ones in my area (near central London) cost between £3000 and £5000 per week. I had no idea this was possible. When looking for a private care home I felt like I was dealing with gangsters or trying to buy cocaine.
After a brief tour one care manager asked me to decide on the spot whether I wanted the room, without discussing it with the rest of the family. She was nicer than the others. Another care home placement manager wanted me to pay £12600 upfront and show the deeds to my parent's flat before she would consider allowing my father a place. During a visit to a very average care home in a rough part of London, the person showing me round said fees would be between £1750 a week and £2000 a week. I said that £2000 a week was out of our budget. At the end of the visit she told me to phone back tomorrow if I wanted the room. The next day I phoned her back and said we wanted the room but needed to know the exact price per week, she hung up on me. I thought there was an issue on the line so I tried again several times until I realised she was hanging up each time and I gave up. I was utterly devastated. I was desperate to get him out of hospital at this point, he'd been there for a couple of months, and both the hospital and local social services were refusing to do a proper needs assessment or care plan.

Clearly I shouldn't have said £2000 a week was too much to that particular care home, or maybe the place was gone, but instead of explaining this to me they just hung up on me repeatedly. I have to tell you here that I was very polite and didn't deserve this treatment. One common problem was that care homes would not be specific about their fees, they just always gave a general answer of between £££ and £££££.
So eventually I sent my parent to a care home far from my place and far from his place as the respite fees were clearly indicated as £1450 per week for short-term care. It looked like a great place and putting him in respite care would help give us some thinking time of what to do long-term.
However now I realise it's not that great, carers are grumpy, the manager is leaving, the carers have strange ideas about what is good for my parent that defy any common sense, like leaving him without water in a heatwave. They clearly do not want me to question any problems in his care even though I am very tactful about this, they do not want any input from me.
Also it takes me over an hour to get there by public transport from my home. When I need to bring him anything from his flat, then I have to travel there first, which takes me at least an hour and a half , then getting to the care home from his place takes another hour and a quarter, then after visiting him it takes an hour to an hour and half to get back home. Or I can get costly Ubers, but I don't like to as every penny counts in this situation.
I would try to organise live-in care but he needs two carers to move him, which means more fees, as well as a hospital bed and a sara stedy, plus his bathroom needs adapting, he lives up several flights of stairs, and he has dementia. His local adult social care social workers are not helpful at all. They don't return my calls, and lead me up the garden path when I ask for a needs assessment. His local council are bankrupt.

If I were a politician I would definitely campaign to cap care home prices, and home care prices, raise care standards and the wages of carers who demonstrate they provide good quality care.
Care homes are chains owned by big businesses and since there is a shortage of care they can charge whatever they like. Unbridled financial exploitation.
I feel like home care managers and marketing managers behave like gangsters, using psychological 'hard sell' techniques at a time when families are worried and vulnerable. I have also found that many carers are simply unqualified workers who are desperate for any job of any sort ,or needed a work visa to come to the UK. Some of these carers truly don't care about the elderly. Having said that, my parent's care is somewhat better in the care home than with visiting carers, where his care was appalling. I had to supervise carers to prevent disasters, like my dad not getting his medications.
I have similar stories about another good friend I help who also has appalling visiting carers in central London. Seeing both my dad and my friend not being cared for is a source of constant worry and heartbreak, and it puts me off wanting to grow older!

M0nica

Macgran43

My monthly bills to stay in my spacious home add up to approximately £1500 This includes paying a cleaner and gardener . I would think it fair that I should pay this amount to a Care Home. Nursing care is free. A local Nursing Home is charging £6000 per month. For this I would have a small bedroom with en-suite. Someone must be making a large profit.

Anything but. Running a Care home is very expensive. To begin with there is the cost of staff.

When visiting a relative in a care home, there was a practice fire alarm just as we arrived and we had to wait in the entrance area where staff gathered. DH and I reckoned that there was one member of staff there for every resident. There were carers, cleaners, laundry staff, catering staff, maintenance staff, gardeners, as well as admin and a few nurses.

Add on to your £1,500 the cost of employing someone full time to live with you to cook and do your laundry, maintin your home, do the shopping. Add in insurance costs, the costs of all the specialised equipment they have to have and have serviced regularly, then there is regulation, all the expense in checking staff, training them, and so so on.

You will find by the time you have added up all those costs, the 'profit' in that £6,000 is not that great. You need to remember that while nursing care may be free, most people in care homes, as distinct from nursing homes, which will be much more expensive, do not need nursing care, just care, so do not qualify for free nursing.

If you work out the rate per day of care home fees, and compare it to the cost of bed and breakfast in a reasonable hotel locally, it may not seem so excessive.

A care home provides all meals and drinks, often a lot of help with washing, dressing and ‘toileting’ as they like to call it, all laundry (often a lot, especially if there’s dementia) and usually very high levels of heating during the colder months.

Plus, usually, someone on hand 24/7 to help, reassure anyone confused or agitated, etc.

Milest0ne

My mother looked after 3 of my grandparents but that counted for nothing when she needed care. Her savings from the sale of her home were less than 10K in a bank account. To add insult to injury ,the bank wanted us to apply for probate to release the last of her money. The bank did relent , eventually. Am I alone in thinking that "old people" are considered as cash cows ?

Yes, we old people are considered as cash cows because the government know where we live and are easy to get money from. If we sofa hopped like many people are doing these days they would n ot have to pay anything at all.

I often wonder, when we were first married if we should just have hid our savings under the floorboards in a safe, because interest rates are not worth putting your money in the bank for.

I remember when we used to pay 17% mortgage interest and they say that we elderly have it good. People are now moaning that 3% mortgage interest rate is high, they have no idea.

Because we saved for a rainy day, took out private pensions we get nothing. We get a triple lock rise and straight away w pay tax if you have a private pension. Givde it to us with one hand and take it back with the other.

They are now going to tax people who have paved drives.

I did manage by asking nicely to keep a percentage of his private pension because I pointed out if he died I would get that part of his pension.

Good thinking welshchrissy 👍

Nothustaprettyface. Nurseries are also much much cheaper in most of Europe. What they pay fir a week there is just one day’s fees in nursery here.
Rip off Britain 🇬🇧 why? No idea. Unless it’s government funded in Europe instead of privately run here. Have answered my own question.

kittylester

On the subject of joint savings

If a couple has joint savings of £100k then it is assumed to be £50k each.

If care costs are £20k per annum, at the end of year 1 there will be £80k left.

Allocated on 50/50 basis - £40k each.

Therefore, in effect, both parties have paid £10k rather than the person requiring care paying the full 20k.

This would happen every year.

That is incorrect, the £20k would come from the cared for savings not from the joint account. It is split 50/50 before any assessment is done

So how do you explain that in other countries , France for example , care home fees are half what they are in this country ?

On the subject of joint savings

If a couple has joint savings of £100k then it is assumed to be £50k each.

If care costs are £20k per annum, at the end of year 1 there will be £80k left.

Allocated on 50/50 basis - £40k each.

Therefore, in effect, both parties have paid £10k rather than the person requiring care paying the full 20k.

This would happen every year.

Jane43 That would only apply if your mother was being state funded. When someone is paying their fees from their own resources then the Pension and Attendance Allowanc would go into their bank account as normaal and the Care home has no interest in the source of their funds, providing the fees are paid.

In wales there is a £50000 savings threshold so that’s lucky for us. To assess my husband’s contribution I had to send in 6 months bank statements on any account he was named on. The joint accounts they simply said half was mine half was his and they were not interested in any of my personal accounts. If his money added up to less than 50k they then added up his income, government and private pensions and any other benefits and after making a personnel spending allowance invoiced us each month for this amount.. So basically we pay over all his income apart from about £40 and also if the care home is higher priced than there allowance I also have to pay a supplement to cover this.. I did manage by asking nicely to keep a percentage of his private pension because I pointed out if he died I would get that part of his pension. It made me feel I was begging for my own money. I used to be an accountant so was able to deal with this but very difficult for someone not used to dealing with figures.

Sago

You can claim attendance allowance for your husband which will help a little.
You need to speak to a social worker from Adult Services, they will tell you what your rights are

When my mother went into a care home for the final two years of her life the attendance allowance was taken by the care home towards the fees, as was her state pension and police widows’ pension. My brother and I paid for any incidentals she needed. This was over 25 years ago so things may have changed.

Notjustaprettyface

Hello win
My husband and I had this arrangement that he paid for gas and electricity and it was decided by him and it goes back to the start of our married life so that’s 45 years ago
Of course he’s not using either gas or electricity now but that doesn’t mean that I can afford to pay for these bills

If you really cannot afford to pay for this you will need a benefit check, your husband should not be paying for your gas and electricity when he is being funded. That equals to the taxpayer paying your expenses. You would not agree with this if it was someone else who said that. Once your husband becomes funded things change drastically and they will take everything he has except a small allowance for himself and a few adjustments for you. That is how it is and that is sadly what happens to everyone. This is why I keep saying that if you save for your old age at least you have a choice when it comes to care. People are always saying it is unfair we have to spend our hard earned cash on care, but why? surely it is better we provide for ourselves well if we possibly can, rather than the state having to decide where we live and under what means.

kittylester

^Am I right in understanding that in the event of one partner needing care, couple A, who have separate bank accounts would be charged less for care than couple B, who have joint ones, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?^

I am not an expert but, assuming the global sum of both couples is similar, the fees for both would be the same but the person needing needing care in Couple A would run out of money sooner than couple B.

Then an amount would be due to the LA when the house is sold.

Couple B would spend more of their savings etc.

I think.

Yes you have got that wrong, everything joint is split 50/50 before an assessment is done. However it is always better to have separate savings accounts long before you need care particularly if one is better off than the other . You can only be assessed on what is actually yours.

Am I right in understanding that in the event of one partner needing care, couple A, who have separate bank accounts would be charged less for care than couple B, who have joint ones, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

I am not an expert but, assuming the global sum of both couples is similar, the fees for both would be the same but the person needing needing care in Couple A would run out of money sooner than couple B.

Then an amount would be due to the LA when the house is sold.

Couple B would spend more of their savings etc.

I think.

Macgran43

My monthly bills to stay in my spacious home add up to approximately £1500 This includes paying a cleaner and gardener . I would think it fair that I should pay this amount to a Care Home. Nursing care is free. A local Nursing Home is charging £6000 per month. For this I would have a small bedroom with en-suite. Someone must be making a large profit.

Anything but. Running a Care home is very expensive. To begin with there is the cost of staff.

When visiting a relative in a care home, there was a practice fire alarm just as we arrived and we had to wait in the entrance area where staff gathered. DH and I reckoned that there was one member of staff there for every resident. There were carers, cleaners, laundry staff, catering staff, maintenance staff, gardeners, as well as admin and a few nurses.

Add on to your £1,500 the cost of employing someone full time to live with you to cook and do your laundry, maintin your home, do the shopping. Add in insurance costs, the costs of all the specialised equipment they have to have and have serviced regularly, then there is regulation, all the expense in checking staff, training them, and so so on.

You will find by the time you have added up all those costs, the 'profit' in that £6,000 is not that great. You need to remember that while nursing care may be free, most people in care homes, as distinct from nursing homes, which will be much more expensive, do not need nursing care, just care, so do not qualify for free nursing.

winterwhite

I think that social care should be funded nationally but still administered locally. I.e all money should be ring-fenced.

When council tax payers are consulted about their ‘priorities’, road repairs always come first second and third.

Almost all of local authority budgets are spent on social care - the largest bill is now for adult social care (not for the retired population) which has grown significantly. The previous government dramatically reduced central funding for local authorities, which is part of the reason they can’t provide care and fix potholes.
As others have said, care is almost entire provided for by the private sector now. It is seen as a source of profit.
What happens is that the properties themselves get sold off to a third parties companies who then lease them to the home operator. This means that there is a big element in the costs of the home for the rent of the property itself. It enables a 2nd set of people (often a private equity company so no shareholders, no published accounts thus no transparency) to get rich on the back of care home fees. And it’s part of the reason why there is no money to improve paying conditions for care workers.
I have never had any problem with good quality, private provision of care and it’s right that users should have a choice of providers.
But this is the worst kind of market greed. I don’t think in the 80s when Margaret Thatcher thought that markets would be a more efficient way to provide services, she envisaged this kind of greed.
I was never a fan of the milk snatcher, but think she genuinely believed this was a better way to deliver services and had faith in the institutions we had then to regulate markets. 40 years on the world looks a very different place, with unimaginable levels levels of private wealth, loss of commitment to public service and unabashed greed.
It’s really hard to imagine how we’re going to sort it out without taking it all back into public ownership, which has not historically resulted in better management/delivery of services.
It really does need some forward thinking to come up with solutions that are fit for 2020.

annajp

Look at all the relevant fact sheets on Age UK - really helpful. There is a list here: www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fcs_guide_index.pdf

Thank you so much - bookmarked this. What an amazing resource of useful information.

My monthly bills to stay in my spacious home add up to approximately £1500 This includes paying a cleaner and gardener . I would think it fair that I should pay this amount to a Care Home. Nursing care is free. A local Nursing Home is charging £6000 per month. For this I would have a small bedroom with en-suite. Someone must be making a large profit.

kittylester

No they don't. It is solely savings in his name or joint savings.

These things are so very unfair, IMO. Apart from the social and geographical anomalies, technically all money in a marriage is shared, so why should couples be penalised for not separating finances? Surely there is no right and wrong when it comes to organising money? Some people prefer to keep separate savings and others to pool everything.

Am I right in understanding that in the event of one partner needing care, couple A, who have separate bank accounts would be charged less for care than couple B, who have joint ones, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

No they don't. It is solely savings in his name or joint savings.