To think that if you have the funds to pay for your care home needs then you absoloutley should?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Interesting chat with a friend the other day about the extortionate costs of care homes and how if you live in social housing/rental and are on benefits then the government will pay for your care yet if you have "worked hard all your life and want to leave something for your kids" you are made to sell your home / use savings to pay for your care.

Friend is of the opinion that everyone who requires a care home should have it paid for by the government. So essentially a "hand out" yet also is of the opinion that those on benefits are getting "hand outs" and looks on them with scorn.

My personal opinion is that if you have the means to fund your own care home needs then yes; you absoloutley should pay for some or all of that. Why should the government fork out millions for every care home resident in the country so that a vast amount of them can then hand their properties and extensive savings down to their children?

It's simply not viable to fund 100% of care home needs across the country and if you are the kind of person who gets smug about "paying my way all my life" to the tune of living mortgage free in a 300k plus home with vast savings then you should be happy to continue "paying your way" til the end.

I also pointed out to her that as she will be funding her own care she will likely have more say in where she goes.

The end result was we both agreed the best solution was to swerve the care home altogether but I wondered whether I was BU to expect someone who can afford to pay for their care to actually pay for their care?

I’d try to kill myself before going into a care home. Quality of life over quantity. We keep people alive far to long in conditions we wouldn’t expect even animals to live with or deal with.

To much life at any cost crap.

Are pp saying these people should be within NHS care

How can the NHS stretch to take on the huge ageing population if they are classed as ill. It can barely cope now.

I don't like the implication of referring to elderly and/or dementia sufferers as 'these people' at all - that's the normal language used to refer to those who have actively chosen to perpetrate criminal or anti-social acts - but, yes, if they are UK nationals, then their illnesses and health care needs should indeed be within NHS care. If you don't class people suffering from dementia as ill, how would you classify dementia - a quirky lifestyle choice cheerfully embraced by old folk with no other hobbies?

I'm not putting words into your mouth at all, but it makes no more sense to deny that dementia is an illness, purely because almost all sufferers are elderly, than it would be to deny that sickle-cell disease is an illness, just because almost all sufferers are black. People are people and people can and do get ill. That's precisely what our NHS is there for.

Why pick on the ageing population? Don't forget that, although dementia tends to affect people who are elderly, it isn't an intrinsic part of being elderly.

Plenty of people think that the population is increasing unsustainably, so maybe it would help the over-squeezed NHS if they suddenly decided to stop allowing women to give birth (after all, being pregnant isn't an illness) free on the NHS or even stopping treating people under the age of 18, unless they could pass humiliating and intrusive tests to categorically prove that they could not pay for it or contribute towards it themselves? That would be absurd - but nobody cares about the elderly, so let's just throw them under the bus and hope they hurry up and die, eh?

WeBuilt • of course it is an illness, a chronic one, my gm was in a care home very much a person and loved and cared for and but someone who needed 10 years care. It was very sad.

But how will it be funded? Who will pay? Which income bracket do you suggest?

It can come down to how things are classed, with private insurance they will split acute from chronic and not cover the latter. It is too expensive for them to do so.

In an ideal world yes it world yes it would be covered but now who is able to pay. Or rather the stretched NHS diverts some of its funding but who do you leave out?

So for example, a woman I went to school with, has never worked a day in her life. Lives in a council house. She has hair extensions, fake tan weekly and beautiful false nails. She will get a free care home place. I have worked since I was 17, had my own home at 19 because I WORKED HARD. My nails are crap, I'm pale as Casper the ghost and my hair gets aldi conditioner as a treat! I will have to pay potentially thousands a month for my care until my life's savings are gone then I'll get free care. If you think this is in any way fair, I'd welcome your justification

If you think this is in any way fair, I'd welcome your justification

What’s the alternative?

You turf your neighbour out on the street?

Or young families, who’ll never have the chance to own their own home pay more tax so you keep your savings?

Neither of these are right either.

There’s more to life than hair and nails. If you’ve got assets in retirement, you’ve had a good lot overall and the probability is that you won’t need the home and you’ll keep your savings.

What about people who require care because they have neglected their own health?

what if we had a system where people are monitored and those who stick to a healthy lifestyle earn credits which can be 'spent' later on when they need care?

In that article it said people in the UK were unhealthier than other countries, it’s more of a problem to keep us working until the later retirement age.

It’s not a bad idea but not sure the public would go for it. People outcry over all sorts of milder stuff.

For the other idea I think that would be hard to implement. People would die as a result, and everyone would be up in arms. I’m all for working harder to prevent say obesity crisis but education and campaigns are slow and only do so much.

What about people who require care because they have neglected their own health?

What about them? They tend to get physical illnesses covered by the NHS. Dementia isn’t caused by lifestyle.

I would prefer my parents to enjoy their retirement so if my Mum was a homeowner I would suggest she sell up and rent so that she could use the money. I don't want her money, she should enjoy it.

An unhealthy lifestyle puts you at much higher risk of dementia, unhealthy lifestyle is a risk factor, a significant risk factor for multiple long-term conditions for which people end up needing care

@LaurieMarlow the alternative is regulation of care providers to stop the fees from bankrupting people. I worked in a care home where staff are on minimum wage and the owner is driving a maserati, that's what's wrong! Why should anyone that works hard their whole life be penalised at the end of it?

I don't intent to need care in my old age. I will end my own life while I'm still able to recognise that I'm declining. I've no wish to be dependent and wouldn't want my family to see me deteriorate beyond recognition.

I think immediate families income should be taken into account also. We should all feel more responsibility to our aging parents.

I just want to correct an earlier poster. Pensioners DO pay tax on their pension income. However, the state pension is less than the personal allowance, so if you have additional pensions, your state pension income is taken into account on your personal allowance (tax code) for your other income. Once claiming the state pension, pensioners, do NOT pay National Insurance, which is another issue. However, I don’t want to hijack the thread onto pensions.

I believe residents in residential care who are paid by social services (SS), have all the pension taken, except for about 15.00 per week, which the resident is said to need for personal items (toiletries, etc). This sum may have changed.

Obviously, this does not apply to those who are self-funded (ie selling their house), as they are paying for their total care anyway. Very few pensioners will have sufficient INCOME to pay for their care.

Those without assets may be the feckless who have spent all their money on foreign holidays, etc, but they could also be hard working, on low incomes all their life. There is no way of differentiating.

Another poster talked about ‘choosing’ your home. You may be lucky, but despite viewing over 12 homes for my mother, we had to ‘choose’ the only one that would accept her.
Also, if you choose a different area (such as an area local to you, rather than where the resident originally lived), you may find very few homes will take your parent, because the SS of the resident area pays less than your own SS. Yes, even if the resident is selling a home to pay for their own care, there will be concerned that if the money runs out, they will get less money.

Once in the home, you will then find they do everything in their power to keep your parent alive (because under the rules of self-funding, your parent is subsidising the fees of those paid by SS). So they are then viewed as a ‘cash cow’ (all the time there is money).

With dementia, the brain gradually shuts down, and to watch your parent die on the Liverpool Care Pathway is abhorrent. They may call the LCP something else these days, but it still exists. This sounds cruel, but ultimately, there becomes little left to die from.

Selling your home if you are in some sort of care is fine in my book, as long as your house is now empty.

But putting someone like me (the spouse of someone needing care) into a position where they have no choice but to pay the third party top-up is wholly wrong. Because I am going to have to sell the home I live in in order to do this.

The alternative is for my OH to be in a seriously crap nursing home where no (or only a small) top-up is needed.

I keep hearing that an unhealthy life style can cause dementia but most people I know with it didn't smoke or drink ate healthily and walked nearly everywhere as well as having physical jobs! They tended to become poorly at a much older age too.
It's not always lifestyle that can cause these brain diseases. Been told this by people that work in dad's care home too!

We couldn't afford to pay care home fees for our dad ( his self funding anyway , but still)
Who has extra cash after all the bills are paid ? food for four of us is huge not to mention council taxes! We have to run a car for work / shopping etc it's never ending!
My kids don't earn much and couldn't contribute either when it's my turn! I wouldn't want them too!
It's a ticking time bomb but politicians don't seem to care.

the alternative is regulation of care providers to stop the fees from bankrupting people

I agree with better regulation, sure. However, fees still must be paid. Providers aren’t going to do this for nothing or at a loss. The unfortunate truth is that old age care is very expensive.

Why should anyone that works hard their whole life be penalised at the end of it?

Why should anyone with assets of their own be funded by the state?

And plenty of people don’t work particularly hard, yet end up with assets, just as lots work their arses off yet never own their own home.

I think immediate families income should be taken into account also. We should all feel more responsibility to our aging parents.

So, my parents help pay for my grandparents care costs and then have no money for their own, and DH and I have less than either my GPs or DPs so we won't be able to pay for my DPs care (if needed) or our own. Not sure that's really helping anyone.

My issue is that people who are self-funding are subsidising those who aren't through increased costs, which of course means they burn through their savings quicker and may end up having to move homes - which can be fatal in the very elderly. But I don't begrudge those who don't have savings (or a house) from having their care paid for by the state - which is a good thing as I'm unlikely to ever have more than £10-15,000 max in savings. I save every month then something breaks down or leaks, or whatever and that's another chunk of money gone.

@The80sweregreat, completely agree. Dementia runs in my mum’s family. She led an incredibly healthy lifestyle - ate well and was still riding her bike at nearly 90. I’m pretty much resigned to getting it

I don’t think that children’s income should be taken into account, that’s just kicking the can down the road. Care in old age is very expensive not many can live, save for a decent pension, pay for care for parents, then maybe their own.

If it was very profitable you’d get more companies going into it.

So, my parents help pay for my grandparents care costs and then have no money for their own, and DH and I have less than either my GPs or DPs so we won't be able to pay for my DPs care (if needed) or our own. Not sure that's really helping anyone

When you apply for a student loan, everyone's income is taken into account. I think immediate childrens income should be means tested and a contribution should be made if their income is aboove a certain level.

The unhealthy lifestyle suggestion is completely unworkable. How would you monitor it? What’s classified as healthy? What if that changes?

There’s little correlation anyway.