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

The Government is proposing an alternative and many agree with them. It will be cheaper once we have the convenience of legalised euthanasia and we can avoid the cost care homes. 🤔

There comes a point with dementia where they need 24hr care, just like a baby.
They need changing, they lose the ability to be reasoned with, sometimes violent. Even the most placid person can become violent and want to go out in the middle of the night

There is a limit to what individuals can cope with.

I think there's a link to the right to die. My parents are adamant they don't want to ever be in care or have their children care for them. For my Mum in particular, it's her worst fear, not because of the money but because she just hates the thought of being dependent on others. She has said many times that she wants to choose euthanasia over that, and I do worry that she would decide to go to Switzerland before whilst she's fit enough to get there without help, meaning her life would end prematurely, rather than risk getting to the point she needs help.

It seems massively unfair that you could be forced to pay for your last years when you didn't want to live them, not that way anyway.

Yes. Yet if you don't want to take statins but your GP has suggested it, you can't refuse because then you wouldn't be able to get life insurance or travel insurance. No point in not mentioning it in your application because the t&c include authorisation to access your GP records.
I didn't want my cholesterol checked when I had my other, necessary blood tests done, but they did it anyway. So I fully expect to be tipped into the statin trap in due course. Of course the side effects can be debilitating.

It's not a given that you'll get free care for cancer. You'll get free treatment and you'll get some care whilst receiving that treatment but if you have long term care needs due to cancer, you'll likely have to self fund for that care.

Yes, some people are eligible for CHC (NHS funded care) but it is few and far between.

You're not at all unreasonable but I have to say I haven't seen many threads about that.

If you want to put your property in a trust for your DC, take legal advice, do it properly and do it now. Now. Ours was done as soon as DS was 18 and we were 50. Twelve years later he has forgotten all about it, we are in perfect health and hopefully he won't benefit for 20+years. And as it was all so long ago no one would ever challenge it as deliberate deprivation.

Awful. I wish this could be exposed more. I didn't realise they were that bad. It's disgraceful.

It's based on a misunderstanding about medicine and history, I think. We live longer but not in good health. Previously the whole issue would not have arisen, because heart attacks and strokes were almost always fatal and happened before dementia. It's millions of statin prescriptions keeping people alive into their 80s and 90s. OTOH, how nice, only not really.

There's very fancy care homes that cost incredible amounts, if you are in an average care home and are funding it yourself you're basically covering the person who is state funded next to you. It's not like private hospitals or private schools, you're getting the same as everyone else unless you are in the Eton of care homes. So I can understand why people aren't incentivised to save for future care.

I can see it from both sides. It can be extremely hard to sell the family home to pay for care. Especially, when your elderly parents went through tough times in order to purchase the home.

I know my parents wanted to keep the family home, so it was passed on and could stay within the family. It can be hard for them to accept that they must sell it, all the while watching people who have made poor financial decisions/ chosen not work/ play the system get care for free.

Right now life is not fair if you do the right thing. It happens when there is an expectation that young adults pay for uni for most of their adult lives but those that did not go can claim benefits from 18 but do not have to pay a penny back when their circumstances improve. It doesn't seem right.

However, care must be paid for and I understand it is expensive and the better the care home the more expensive it is. How care is funded needs to be reassessed as the current model is not working well.

It's written in to the care act but implementation has been postponed because of the cost to the public purse if it were introduced.

Plus it only covers cost of CARE. Rent, food, social activities, utilities etc don't come in to it. So care homes would need to provide a breakdown of what the care element costs and what is everything else. So the cap would still mean people spending £££ on overall care costs.

It's not "extortion", it's paying a proper rate for all the staffing costs and other overheads needed to look after a group of vulnerable people.
And of course the company has to make a profit - why should they do it for nothing?

I used to work in a care home and the self funders with a certain amount of capacity were often furious at the amount they were paying for their care. Extremely bitter and unhappy

They may in princioalbut they're not going to prove doa if a healthy parent signed a house over a decade ago

"A lifetimes scrimping and saving to pay the mortgage, bills and repairs and the person in the next room was there at the taxpayers expense" - but what about the benefit of living in your and your families' home for decades - unless someone owns several houses, are alruistic people buying houses they don't use for decades to pay for care?

I worked on one of those wards in the 1970s. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

And that doesn't need to be stopped in my opinion 😁

The thing with dementia is alot of the care needed isn't medical. The NHS isn't going to cover my mum switching off the power to the central heating controls and the phoning British Gas because it hasn't come on. It's not going to cover emptying mum's freezer because she's jammed it so full she can't open the drawers and so she's propped the door open (to de-ice the drawer so it opens in her head) and ruined all the food in it. It's not going to clean mum's house or do her laundry because she's forgotten to.

Good.

YABU to think people won't worry or try to avoid. Money is tight for everyone at the mo. Life/the world is unfair. We all try to do our best.

And that needs to be stopped as well in my opinion.

There used to be NHS geriatric beds.

People are living with cancer for much longer now - treatments are getting better at keeping people alive and okay for much longer and having occasional respite care in a hospice.
Dame Esther Rantzen announced her terminal cancer a few years back had treatment and it is only now that she is beginning to worsen according to her daughter (although perhaps there is another treatment available for her).

When MIL was in a care home (severe dementia) she was not entitled to the nursing care component - which is tiny anyway. Her fees, ten years ago, were £1500 per week. The rate paid by the council for the non-paying residents was £500 per week. I had colleagues managing care homes who knew the figures. The actual cost per resident per week was somewhere in the middle, depending on the home.
Also, you can't just leave your relative in there and hope for the best. You have to be on top of everything from the laundry, through medication, glasses, hearing aids. Everything goes missing and has to be replaced over and over again. It is hard work. I bought good quality practical clothes and sewed name tapes on everything. All vanished within a short period of time as did her shoes. We bought toiletries weekly. I felt desperately sorry for residents who had no family to look out for them.