Fed up of reading threads asking how they can get out of paying care home fees.

I think it’s more likely that people with money they want their kids to get will chose that route.
People who get it free won’t. Because It’s all free

Which in turn means there’s less people paying their own money in. Which means less free top ups for the council funded.
and round and round we go into a system that is not fit for purpose even now.

I think it’s the fact that some people get to pay nothing because they haven’t accrued any assets but those that do have to pay, so it seems more like a fine for being more financially astute.

I've been around a number of care homes looking for somewhere suitable for both my in-laws. Only one of them had dementia, but the other required round the clock specialist nursing, following discharge from hospital with an incorrect diagnosis. We were I suppose more concerned about them being able to get frequent regular visits, but to me it seemed there wasn't much difference in the prices of very nice homes, and places where you wouldn't keep a rabid dog. All much of a muchness.
They'd both been adamant about staying out of care homes, and as a team we kept them at home as long as we could. But honestly, I was so exhausted I'd have let someone come and take every penny they owned to be done with the constant state of high alert over every phone call, and what we'd find today.

It should be subsidised I think, or at least regulated, state run on cost maybe? Some of the prices the private nursing homes charge are ludicrous. I’m talking 1k+ per week, and the ‘care’ can be questionable too. I wouldn’t put my mum or dad in one, although they are divorced so that might make one hell of a household one day 😂

It's absolutely ridiculous that people don't want to pay for their own care and shameful that they would attempt to avoid it.

Would you walk into a hairdressers and expect not to pay? It's no different. It's a service you are receiving. Pay for it!

It's really no different than benefit fraud.

When assisted dying is introduced, people who can't afford to pay for their care will be v vulnerable IMHO

So, your decision to rely on the state funding care may backfire on you

It isn’t a fair system.

If you compare it with education, people with money don’t get forced to pay for private education. Everyone is entitled to a state education.

If you consider a person with a modest job who has scrimped to buy a house and spent 25 years paying off their mortgage - only to need care and the whole house gets “taken” by the govt for the care - what was the point in working for the house?

And it’s pretty random when you consider who needs care. Some people die quickly - eg heart attack, whereas others can live in a bad situation needing care for 20 years or so.

I’m not surprised people are trying to avoid paying. It’d make me feel sick if our house (that me and DH have paid off by working like bastards) ended up going to the govt rather than our kids. I’d prefer to be put down like a pet rather than my kids not to have my house because I needed care.

They have to prove intent to deprive.
The Home owner doesn’t have to prove their innocence

15 years is outside the scope so social services couldn’t do much. Unless they are mind readers

There is always a chance however especially if the elderly person was already ( ie at the time of transfer ) ill in some way and it was reasonable to assume they’d need full time care in the future.

@rainingsnoring You have your opinion, I have mine.

Hmm my dad was a sportsman, always fit. No smoking, no drinking. Dead at 56 from lung cancer. If your time is up, it´s up.

What actually happens when a local authority looks into a person’s finances and determines that, yes, they did deprive themselves of assets when they signed their house over to their children 15 years ago? The local authority presumably can’t make the children give the money back. The older person still has care needs that have to be met. I genuinely don’t know what would happen in these circumstances.

I believe it’s fine to use a persons own money to pay for their own care.
I don’t think it’s moral to use it to pay for someone else’s in the home that is underfunded by the council

Yeah this. ^ Of course people are going to get pissed off about it. And as for the 'I was happy for my quarter million inheritance to go on mum's care' brigade.. Really......?! You were genuinely OK with this?! Even if you were, bully for you. Doesn't mean others have to be.

Some people resent it because people who need to go into care, who have no assets or property, get free care, so yes there is a sense of deep unfairness about it all.

As other posters have said, I shall do my level best to make sure my DC get as much as possible of my money/assets before I need care. (They've already benefited from some.) Hopefully I never have to go into care, but if I do, I'm not having my DC's inheritance funding it. Nope.

So

What would you suggest for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s
or let’s say all the severely mentally disabled

Agree.
Especially when so much of what the payers are paying is actually just top ups for those not paying. Who wants to pay for randoms……

If people want advice on Mumsnet I really don’t care what it’s for .
That’s one of the reasons Mumsnet is here

If others don’t like certain threads there are plenty of others to chose from

Nevermind the thousands spent on monthly nursing care home support - We should be having an honest national discussion about whether keeping people with dementia going in care home settings is the best thing for them, their standard of living and who actually benefits - imho it’s certainly not the patient

A very small percentage of people end up in care homes. If you have assets of course you pay for this. See it as spending money on yourself

I disagree, a nursing home has greatly benefitted my DM. She simply would not accept any care in her own home. She was starving and in the end very depressed, dirty and laying in filthy bed sheets. Now she eats, is on a lot of medication which is administered regularly and is clean. She was having all sorts of accidents home but there hasn’t been one incident in the last 2.5 years.

No different from a so called benefit scrounger really.

Yes but few people require round the clock care by non family. We will stay in our own homes with support during the day then live with family, and some may need more care right at the end but I think it will become more normal for generations to live together again.

My DM was that lady so to speak except that she lived in her own. My DB and I had no life for years as my DM kept passing capacity tests so it was really challenging to get her into a nursing home.
In the case of this lady she would use savings (if she had any) to pay for a home but not the house as her DH lives there.

Being in a care home won’t make her any less confused, agitated or less likely to have falls. Ok she would not end up outside in her nightie, but aside from that a persons suffering is the same.

It's a lottery who will end up needing to go into a care home and who won't, and I don't think it's fair that it's self-funded, given how eyewateringly expensive it is.

NHS care is free at the point of need (in theory - the downside being you often have to wait). We all pay for that out of taxes and recognise, if we're sensible, that we're often going to be paying for other people's care, not our own, but few of us grudge that because it could be our turn next. Why is it different for social care?

I'd be happy to pay more in taxes or a one off insurance payment to guarantee that free, good quality care would be provided in my own home as long as possible and if/when not possible, in residential care. If in the end I didn't need that care and had therefore paid more than I needed, fine by me. Just like paying for any insurance that in the end you don't need. You're paying for peace of mind.

One way of funding social care could be from inheritance tax. Currently a married couple can leave up to £1m to their children without a penny of inheritance tax being payable. That's a huge amount of money. It would do a lot to reduce the inequality in our society if some of it went back to fund public services.

We should also be funding end of life care in hospices out of taxes. It's absurd that they're dependent on donations and charity funding to cover their costs.

I haven't seen any of those threads but I agree with you.

I remember as a junior doctor in the late 1980s there being lots of long stay "geriatric"(ugh) wards. People stayed there if they couldn't get home and that was paid for by the state as it was NHS. In the 34 years I had as a GP I watched these be shut down and all the care transferred privately with GPs running the medical side with very little support whereas these people previously had consultants and hospital teams looking after them.

There were a few private homes around and some were amazing.