To get annoyed when people try to avoid care costs

[paramedicswift]

People deserve good care in old care, potentially in their own home or in a care home.

While it is completely rational thing to do, people try avoid this cost by spending as much money as they can before they need this care or they give it away to family.

On one side, it is completely rational. I understand that people have paid taxes, national insurance and worked for their entire life. They have a desire to see this work to be passed onto their children for them to benefit from their hard work.

One the other side, it is incredibly entitled. To me, your care in old age is just another cost of life. It is like cost of food, cost of shelter. I wish I did not have to spend money on rent, food and travel to work. But I have to. This is just life.

It makes me even more angry when family inheritances come into it. It is just so greedy and horrible. I do not know why it is unacceptable to some people to apply for benefits and never work but completely acceptable to avoid paying for social care.

It is a bit of tragedy of commons because if everyone did it, then taxes would be wasted on caring for old people that COULD HAVE afforded the care themselves rather than important things such as education for children, public infrastructure projects and healthcare that benefit everyone.

To everyone according to their need. If someone cannot genuinely afford old age care and they did not deliberately avoid the costs, then I have no problems with state subsidised care.

Am I being unreasonable?

Scenario:

You help somebody to the loo, you can't leave them in case they fall off.

The nurse call buzzer is going, you can't answer it. You leave it to someone else. Hopefully, it will be answered at some point in the near future.

You're supposed to be giving someone a drink, but can't because you're in the loo.

You promised another person a shower, but won't have time to do it because it's mealtime. You may or may not have time after the meal.

You help the person off the loo and into their wheelchair. Their relative wants them in their other chair, so you have to hurry and get the hoist to do it.

The nurse asks you for immediate assistance so she can do a dressing.

Someone with dementia is trying to get up in the lounge and they're at risk of falling.

The nurse call buzzer is still going - your colleagues are busy elsewhere.

Your person still hasn't had a drink.

Your head is buzzing.......

And so on, and so forth. All day, every day.

Good luck with that BeaufortBelle.

I went in every day to visit my dad. I explained over and over again about the need for adequate hydration, how to prevent pressure sores, how to look after a catheter, how to position someone with congestive heart failure so that they could breathe. I even drew pictures and stuck them on the bed.

I bought plates and cutlery suitable for use by a blind person.

I replaced the missing clothes, shoes, slippers.

I attended hospital appointments, had meetings, drove miles to get medication that had run out.

My dad paid £800 per week.

The trouble is that there is nowhere better - we went through 5 different care homes - this was the best, and my dad was totally self funding.

There were several people in these care homes who simply had no family at all.

There are some carers who are lovely kind people. They do their best, but without training, they can get things wrong. The kindest carer can still cause great distress if they are incapable of understanding how to recognise a blocked catheter and therefore leave an elderly person in tremendous pain for 2 days. They can be very well meaning, but still cause massive distress if they don't understand that running out of essential medication can be very dangerous. Having an indwelling catheter, needing regular medication, being blind and confined to a wheelchair does not qualify for any nursing input from a qualified nurse. All these things are only "personal care".

Unfortunately there are also carers who do not care at all. After all they are on minimum wage - why should they?

There are also some, who, with the best will in the world, would never get any sort of job in any other field.

Complaining is unlikely to improve matters. It is much more likely to make you and your relative unpopular and therefore your relative gets even less care.

We all have ideas about what we would do in a given situation. The reality can be very different.

100% inheritance tax is just silly.

If I thought that was coming I'd sell everything and hide the money in antiques, jewellery and other stuff and give them to my sons.

My uncle died with nothing, having sold his house and business, but we (his nieces and nephews) all have some really nice paintings, china, furniture, necklaces, bracelets and rings which we can sell when the mood takes us. He was determined that the government would get nothing from him.

He was a Bevan boy who built up a business from scratch and paid very high taxes for most of his life. That was all they were getting.

And of course, staffing levels are awful.
The care home industry is massive and must be making profits for somebody.

MythicalKings, you might not like the idea - not a lot of people do.

100% might be too high. We nee the effect of 100% inheritance tax without 100% inheritance tax. Trinkets and sentimental things like paintings and jewellery you mention are good examples of this.

monevator.com/9-ideas-to-help-fix-the-broken-uk-housing-market/
debatewise.org/debates/333-inheritance-tax-should-be-raised-to-100-for-everyone-born-in-the-uk/

3littlefrogs, it has always pained me that the care industry is co-opted as a money spinner to extract as much money from old people. I have family and close friends who work in it for low pay while the managers and owners rake it in. Care UK is a good example of it. Makes me furious and probably just highlights that care should be state provided and to take profit out of it.

I wonder how much care would cost if the money you paid went to the right place - to the carers themselves. I think most of the money you are paying goes into (read: wasted) on renting the high capital costs of the physical buildings (care home companies often do not own the buildings).

I think 100% inheritance tax goes to the other extreme. People should use their assets to pay for their care, but when they die, their kids or whoever inherit the rest, after IHT.
Make the IHT the same as say capital gains tax, not ordinary income tax, because it is the same kind of one-off windfall.

I don't like the idea and I know it will never happen, happily. There are far too many ways around it, as my uncle discovered. Assets worth well in excess of a million pounds "disappeared" over 10 years.

How lovely to know that ppl think those struggling in low paid jobs which will include care workers in these homes only deserve sub standard care when they themselves are older.

If they all quit tomorrow there would be mass panic from families of the relatives they are caring for.

And as for caring for our own elderly family members do i really have to pull examples from other threads where the same posters have told people to move and move for work away from their families and communities. If you have moved for work and/or are in a low paid job you are unlikely to be able to afford to take time off to take an elderly relative to hospital. In THEORY carers have a right to time off but excersising that right in a climate where employment rights are being eroded is risky.
If your employer decides to get rid you also have to pay now to bring a case for unfair dismissal.

People cant risk it. But ive noticed there are posters on here who STILL think you are lower than pond scum even if you are working because your job may not pay much.

So paying for care is yet another battle that people in lower socio economic groups just cant win.

yes Helena

Maybe the amount of carers allowance available to family needs reviewing. My mum would have happily looked after my gran 24:7 but couldnt afford to leave her job to do so (ironically a care assistant job)

My gran sold her house to self fund- the money was gone within a year and the council now forks out around £700 a week for her care.

Would be much better if carers allowance was increased to actually allow families to look after their own

YABU

My plan for when my children leave is for myself and OH to downsize our home and pass on excess money so that our children can hopefully get a foot on the property ladder. I can't comprehend how that is selfish

Yanbu it pisses me right off. People seam to think its their God given right to have all healthcare for free and pass on their house.

The current boomer generation never paid enough in for what they are taking out so expect healthcare to suffer even more for the next 20-30 years.

I think different levels of state care, depending on how much you tax you paid, would be very unfair, same as different levels of NHS care would be.
I have a nasty suspicion some people want this, even if they won't say so plainly.

However, for both medicine and care homes, people with assets can choose to privately fund if they want a higher level of comfort and care.
Those with money have more options throughout life, even right at the end. Unfair, but true.

What is taking the piss, imo, is when people deliberately transfer assets to their kids sufficiently far in advance, so that Generation Rent pays their care costs.
Of course, people who go to these lengths don't seem to realise the risk of ending up in a miserable hellhole, instead of the decent care home they could have chosen with self-funding.
Rather like believing the myth about how jolly life on benefits is.

I blame the government. They encourage pensioners to get everything for free. Everything is means tests ed, unless your a pensioner then your automatically worthy and nothing is means tested.

unless your a pensioner then your automatically worthy and nothing is means tested.

Pension credits are means tested, housing benefit is means tested, council tax support is means tested. No need to lie to try to make a point.

Ive worked in nursing homes.
If I ever need that level of "care" I will have a plastic bag and some pills, please :(

A plastic bag and pills might not be enough. Surviving a botched suicide can be horrific and worse than the original problem

The Govt. really needs to give its citizens the option of assisted suicide. It's cruel to deny the population this. How many people can afford to go abroad or have someone to help them travel?

Let the narrow minded pro-lifers spend a few weeks working in a hospital or care home, then let them express their opinions

It's not hard to do yourself in if you want to.
I don't we should change the law to allow others to murder us.

Signlake, providing you're happy to pay for your care costs with your downsized house, then that is not selfish.

Just be aware that there millions of people at the same age of your children who will be stuck renting forever because they never had parents as lucky as they did give them money to 'get on the housing ladder'.

Lotus...if you are paralysed it's pretty hard I would imagine.
I am not going get into a euthanasia debate with you, but we wouldn't let dogs suffer the way we let humans suffer.
I sincerely hope,assisted suicide is made legal before I have need of it.

I'm afraid most people would lack the courage to do a DIY job. I know I would be. I wouldn't be scared to self administer an appropriate dose of barbiturates though.

Assisted suicide is not murder - you do it yourself. Hence the term, suicide.

So what? It's hardly signlake's fault if other people's parents don't give them money "to get on the housing ladder".
You seem to want everyone to come down to the lowest common denominator, and that simply won't happen.
Give 100 people £100 each, and within hours some would have more than others, and some would have none.

Just be aware that there millions of people at the same age of your children who will be stuck renting forever because they never had parents as lucky as they did give them money to 'get on the housing ladder'.

Lucky? We studied hard for our qualifications and have worked hard and saved. Hardly lucky.

Lucky is winning the lottery when you've been a lazy arse all your life.

I worked hard and trained. A protracted divorce and illness forcing me into a carer change meant I lost my house. I'm getting bloody sick of the generalisations about baby boomers.
My mother has been in a care home with dementia for five years already and it's taken all her savings and will. in all probability take her house too. Obviously I expect her to pay for her care but the existence in her home offers no quality of life. I'd rather be able to take up assisted suicide than have to go through that.

No one wants anyone to recive sub standard care, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Everyone should get good quality care, the same as everyone should get good quality education, but if you want extras, then that's what your savings are for.