To think we have to accept that we need to use savings to fund care in old age

[LastDuchessFerrara]

My parents died before reaching old age but I'm now watching family and friends caring - in one form or another - for older relatives.

Many seem to be in denial about the fact that savings, pensions and, in some cases equity in their home, needs to be used to enable their relatives to continue to stay in their homes or go into care.

"But they've worked all their lives!" they cry in protest. Well, yes - and now that money needs to be used in their old age.

It's really focussed my mind on how any money I accumulate might not be spent on amazing holidays but paying for cleaners and carers.

I'd be interested in views but please can this not be a "boomer" bashing thread. I know plenty of impoverished old people and plenty of entitled non-boomers.

A diagnosis of cancer or heart failure does not lead to automatic entitlement to CHC funding

No but you get healthcare, unless it's a very experimental or new and expensive cancer treatment that NICE won't sanction.

@miimblemomble

Just to throw another idea into the mix..as I understand it, here in France, children are legally responsible for providing care for their aged parents. If the parent goes into a home, and does not have the assets to pay for it, the authorities will pursue the children for the costs - and if they are deemed able to pay, they are required by law to do so - selling property etc to do so.

If the children don’t have any assets either, then the authorities advance the costs of care on the parents estate, and recoup what they can after death.

I imagine this would go down like a lead balloon in the U.K.!

It is astonishing that they would put the children (and grandchildren) out on the streets! Surely that's not actually the case.

Anyway the answer is to leave France, I guess.

@poppycat10

Almost as mediaeval as expecting the taxpayer to do it

Lets hope you don't need treatment for a medical condition at some point then.

What people always forget that a lot of elderly people don't just have frailty of old age, they are ill. They have dementia or Parkinsons or something else. If someone has Parkinsons at 50, they get care for free. But if they get it at 80, people just shrug their shoulders and say it's personal care. It really isn't.

The threshold for CHC funding would be the same for a 50yr old with PD and an 80yo with dementia. If the needs are the same, then they'd be treated the same. Someone with advanced dementia doesn't necessarily have specialist nursing needs, but will be fully dependent for personal care therefore their care can be managed by carers. It doesn't mean nursing / medical needs wouldn't be addressed, there just may not be any.

I am probably missing something here, but I have very little experience of care homes although my dg was in one for awhile. Why don't more carers work direct for families? If I was in need of care I would prefer someone to look after me in my own home. I have a spare room so I could happily have someone live in and help me out. The carer, if they wanted to, could live rent free and I would pay for all food and bills and give them a salary too. I am sure that would be better for me and may work for quite a lot of young people looking for a better job than working in a care home trying to manage too many patients in too little time. Is this not a viable option? It would work the same way as employing a live-in nanny to look after your children. Why does everyone pay a fortune to agencies?

@Notgoingouttoday

I am probably missing something here, but I have very little experience of care homes although my dg was in one for awhile. Why don't more carers work direct for families? If I was in need of care I would prefer someone to look after me in my own home. I have a spare room so I could happily have someone live in and help me out. The carer, if they wanted to, could live rent free and I would pay for all food and bills and give them a salary too. I am sure that would be better for me and may work for quite a lot of young people looking for a better job than working in a care home trying to manage too many patients in too little time. Is this not a viable option? It would work the same way as employing a live-in nanny to look after your children. Why does everyone pay a fortune to agencies?

IME By the time someone needs live in care it is way beyond the workload of a nanny. They may be managing medication, complex situations.

But if you can find someone and back up for when they need a break, and can afford it without selling your home - fine.

The agencies for live in care manage the recruitment, references, tax, insurance, training etc. The bulk of the cost goes to the carer, and it is for a 7 day week, so not cheap (and shouldn't be). And of course they don't pay rent!

@RainingBatsAndFrogs Thank you for your response. I am pleased to hear that the bulk of the cost goes to the carer rather than the agency. I guess it would only work if family could manage to cover the time off for the carer.

Incidentally, (R4 article this morning) many rural parts of the country can't get home social care visits, despite being eligible for free care
But how many miles a day should a carer travel to provide 4 half hour visits? Imagine someone living miles up a rough track, carer will spend much more time driving than caring, then there's fuel and wear and tear on the car.
I live in a rural area - it amazes me we still have a postal service, trailing up and down these rough farm tracks day after day- almost everyone has a car, why not more centralised postboxes like in the US, or at leat a box at the end of your drive, but no, postie trails up and down....

@PinkyParrot

Incidentally, (R4 article this morning) many rural parts of the country can't get home social care visits, despite being eligible for free care But how many miles a day should a carer travel to provide 4 half hour visits? Imagine someone living miles up a rough track, carer will spend much more time driving than caring, then there's fuel and wear and tear on the car. I live in a rural area - it amazes me we still have a postal service, trailing up and down these rough farm tracks day after day- almost everyone has a car, why not more centralised postboxes like in the US, or at leat a box at the end of your drive, but no, postie trails up and down....

It never ceases to amaze me how easily we are willing to accept loss of services.

Pay a decent mileage rate and improve carers pay and we'd go some way to addressing staffing issues.

@Notgoingouttoday I’m not sure having a living carer would be cheaper. I don’t think one person would want to live with someone who had dementia 24/7. Live in carers usually rotate and go home for a break as it’s a demanding job 24/7. Also short breaks in the day would need to be covered too.

Pay a decent mileage rate and improve carers pay and we'd go some way to addressing staffing issues.

That's the whole point of most of this thread - no one wants to pay

@PinkyParrot

Pay a decent mileage rate and improve carers pay and we'd go some way to addressing staffing issues.

That's the whole point of most of this thread - no one wants to pay

That's why we have Govt, to lead and make the harder choices.

As i've said countless times, stop spending taxpayers money on tax cuts to business and high speed railways.

@PinkyParrot

Pay a decent mileage rate and improve carers pay and we'd go some way to addressing staffing issues.

That's the whole point of most of this thread - no one wants to pay

On the contrary, there are a number of us who are prepared to pay and have factored that into our planning for old age.

@VinylDetective

M’y MIL is currently in a private nursing home with Parkinson’s, osteoporosis and dementia. It costs £78,000 a year to keep her there. The tax payer is covering that: as a postie and housewife, she and my FIL really didn’t have an option to put that kind of money aside. Not many people do, and it’s a huge amount to put aside «just in case».

Also, she was a fit, healthy, non smoking, non drinking woman all her life. Her decline aged 75 and diagnoses took everyone by surprise (especially her, I don’t think she believes it yet tbh). Yet with good care, she might live for many years to come. Say ten years - that’s a total bill of £780,000 for one person. That’s a huge amount to set aside, even with the best planning.

@Notgoingouttoday, the reason a lot of people end up in care homes is dementia, past the stage when it can be managed at home. If you’ve never had to cope with it, I doubt you can imagine how stressful and exhausting it can be.

All too often, dementia is not just a case of a nice old thing gently getting more forgetful. Even if they were a very nice old thing before.

Among other things, up and down half the night, waking everybody up, because they’ve lost all sense of time and can’t remember any instruction not to do it. (Or to remember anything.).

Becoming aggressive or nasty to nearest and dearest, because they no longer recognise them. Or imagine that they’ve stolen something and can’t be convinced otherwise.

Refusing to wash or be washed, or to change dirty smelly clothes.

Flying into truly terrifying rages over something minute. (This was just one of the reason my FiL eventually went into a care home.)

24/7 care and supervision is then needed - by carers who can go home at the end of their shifts and are not exhausted by living with it day and night.
Live in care may be fine for someone who is simply frail with no dementia, if they don’t need someone on call all night, too, but if the D word is involved, it will usually mean at least 2 on shifts, which can work out quite a bit more expensive than a care home.

@mimblemomble, publicly funded care is absolutely the right thing for people who couldn’t possibly have made preparation for their old age because they never had the money in the first place. Of course your mil should be funded.

But what about people who do have that £780k in assets? Why should young families who are in the position your pils were in 40 years ago pay for their care? I don’t want to live in a society where we take from the poor and give to the rich. Do you?

Among other things, up and down half the night, waking everybody up, because they’ve lost all sense of time and can’t remember any instruction not to do it. (Or to remember anything.)*
This is the case for my neighbour - her DH paces all night - she says she's tried sleeping in every room in the house but has given up and just tries to get some sleep through it. He is 78 and has a long way to go until he will have to go into a care home.

But what about people who do have that £780k in assets? Why should young families who are in the position your pils were in 40 years ago pay for their care? I don’t want to live in a society where we take from the poor and give to the rich. Do you?

That argument applies equally, to any public service.

Why should i pay for the children of the wealthy to go to a state school? or the wealthy to have a hip operation etc?
Do we demand that those who can, contribute to their AE costs?

Aside, we already do, proportionately, the poor pay far more tax than the rich....47% of income vs 34% for the wealthy plus the rich are more able to avoid paying too much for their care and even if they do, will still be able to leave substantial amounts to their children etc unlike the poor who will be bled for almost everything they have.

[quote miimblemomble]@VinylDetective

M’y MIL is currently in a private nursing home with Parkinson’s, osteoporosis and dementia. It costs £78,000 a year to keep her there. The tax payer is covering that: as a postie and housewife, she and my FIL really didn’t have an option to put that kind of money aside. Not many people do, and it’s a huge amount to put aside «just in case».[/quote]
Did she never have a job?

@woodhill

She worked in the Post office till she married, then worked part time after her children went to school. Part time, admin / secretary, low wages. No family assets to inherit. Very normal for someone of her age, class and sex.

Fair enough then

@woodhill

Fair enough then

I don't want to take umbrage at an innocuously meant comment, but I don't think we should leave ex-housewives/SAHPs in the gutter just because their spouse paid all the bills while they were alive. It's perfectly OK for a couple to decide that one of them will work and they will both live on their income. Clearly "live" should include a plan for both of their old ages, but "housewives" actually end up doing a lot of the unpaid work that this caring thread is all about. Would it have been better for the PP's MIL to, for example, get a job that paid exactly enough to hire a nanny to do daycare and then school pickup and a cleaner and a carer for their elderly MIL, etc etc, with a net income of £0 rather than just doing all that work themselves?

I don't really see what the difference is between a couple where one works for money and one does all the unpaid work that enables family life and the other's career vs where they both work for money but in jobs that, after all their expenses (and yes, working has its own expenses), don't let them put any money aside for old age care. They've both worked hard all their lives (for money or not) as part of a single family unit, and both ended up without the money to pay nearly £1 million for care.

I can see that there are grey areas around paying for various levels of care, but I don't think that we should expect tax payers to pay for our accommodation just because we are old or frail.

I never understand people who don't want to sell their house when they go into a Home. They would sell their house if moving to another, or a flat or a bedsit. No one needs two homes, one at the taxpayers' expense. Obviously I'm not suggesting selling a home that a partner still needs to live in, but arrangements can be made to prevent that.

I never understand people who don't want to sell their house when they go into a Home. They would sell their house if moving to another, or a flat or a bedsit. No one needs two homes, one at the taxpayers' expense. Obviously I'm not suggesting selling a home that a partner still needs to live in, but arrangements can be made to prevent that

If clearly needed medical/nursing care was actually defined as such, then yes i can see your argument on residence but this much needed care is classed as "Social" and the person has to pay for it, not just their housing needs.

Remember also, most CH's are run for profit, you are paying for your care and their lifestyles, which in the case of my DD care agency and my mums two nursing homes she worked in, was very nice.

Has anyone employed a live-in carer themselves rather than use an agency? I appreciate using an agency is more convenient and covers the respite breaks, tax and NI, advertising and recruitment and so on but the agency I am currently paying £1800/week to is doing very little (apart from providing appalling service and communications) and the assigned carer is doing an amazing job for - I suspect - a very small share of the fee.
I have experience of employing people at work - and at home (when the kids were younger)... I'd like to know if anyone has any good - or bad - experiences of cutting out the middle man?