To ask what we do to help with the cost of social care?

[AdultsSocialCare]

Adult and childrens social care takes up the majority of all council tax spend. This leaves a small amount for everything else that councils do.

What is the solution?

I feel like ultimately the central government need to give more money to councils but the chance of that has to be next to nil.

So, what else?

@Miffee

Here is the policy for direct payemnts. And I note a previous poster who receives direct payments herself has also stated she cannot use them to pay relatives for her care.

Which is fine except people don’t get mortgages until mid thirties, can’t start families until late thirties, a 30yr mortgage at 5x their salary and years of extortionate child care costs. Your parents reaped rewards of a society where one income could sustain a household, this is 2022 where a monthly g&e bill will soon be c. £350 a month for the average household. You think people have money to invest in their future when they can’t survive the present?!

Pretty sure that policy is unlawful. Generally you shouldn't but discretion can be used see
www.communitycare.co.uk/201is 7/09/08/relatives-paid-direct-payment/

Also relatives can, it's where they live that's important.

If somebody so difficult to support the costs are as high as PP (sorry if its you I can't go back to see) I would certainly argue that a DP should be considered.

Thay rule is in place to stop people who otherwise wouldn't access care deciding to have a little side hustle of rinsing the LA. Also there is a presumption that if you are making a meal etc you would do one for the person you live with.

I provide all or most of my adult autistic son's support and we arranged things financially so he doesn't need social housing.
We will not spend all our savings so we have a fund for our own social care if need be.

@Miffee Well regardless that’s the policy of my LA and as such they would rather pay a private company £2000 a week to care for my 19 year son, likely for the rest of his life. Then financially support me to stay at home and care for him myself for a fraction of the cost. Literally all they offered me was £69 a week. Totally not liveable!

We are foster carers for your LA. Yes, we get money towards the childs clothes, pocket money and to pay for their portion of the bills, but that's it really unless they've been deemed to have significant enough need to qualify for an enhanced payment. Even then it isn't much. The LA aren't keen on you working unless it's minimal hours and/or incredibly flexible.

You need enough space in your home to accommodate the kids, and rightly so.

Putting these kids in residential care costs an astronomical amount.

But where all these people with spacious homes, no need of a second income? Turns out there aren't that many!

I think in some

Sorry, posted too soon by accident.

In some situations, the government could cut costs by spending more to facilitate people being supported to continue living at home rather than in a residential setting.

Residential settings are the right choice for many, but there are many others that could thrive at home if given the right support, and it would be a lot cheaper too.

I'm one. Do I have to be euthanised too or is that only the elderly?

Sorry @PhoenixReincarnated I wasnt asking you.

Bring all care back under council control, no agencies & increase carers allowance.

Aside from the nationalisation idea I cannot see any other feasible solution.

It's highly unlikely that will happen and I am not aware of any radical government reform to help the system.

So that leaves us with costs rising fast, little budget to deal with demand and increasing gap in local government finances.

Perhaps it will be all the other services outside of social care that will see cuts to offset this? Non statutory ones of course.

As it affects every single person, I cannot fathom how this is not featured in the news like the climate crisis or similar.

I hope @Miffee can now see my intention was never just to push a particularly highly sensitive and currently illegal possibility. The debate is so much wider. Although the options for solution is so few.

Don't worry about it 🙂

For the record I don't think anyone should be euthanized.

There is an actual answer to this but won't be in all social care costs.

That is use the social care funding if and when able to pay a living wage to the family member caring. This cuts the middle man and costs of agency and private care. Thus reducing the spend. The carer is provided by a person who was doing so anyway for free.

Or they work because carers allowance alone is not enough to survive. Then the care gets outsourced to others.

Reasons why they don't do this.... In case of fraudulent cases.

@AdultsSocialCare www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/social-care-360/expenditure

explains a bit about where the money is spent.

Oh and adult social care provision are not free. Most people pay a cost towards there care.
These are people who require additional support. Reducing the already underfunded social care provision will do nothing but make things worse for some of the most vulnerable in society.

And whilst care workers in homes and agencies get paid low.... That is down to the rates set by the agency and homes as often ran by private businesses and when all said and done it is a business for them so won't to make a profit. ( some brilliant some not so much).

However personal assistant are not paid a bad hourly rate. Problem is the hours required for care of others, often included nights weekends splits throughout the day. 7 days a week.

Or part time hours that then mean not enough wage to live on, and too much for a top up.

There is so many variables when it comes into social care funding.

Never mind that it also should require some training and the same respect as hca and nursing.

My thought is also.... At some point most of us will require some social care assistant in life. So would you want that funding taking away?

Just my thoughts.

the cost of antisocial behavior and crime in the uk is equally 50 billion.

I saw this wild statistic today from the Financial Times. Social care funding is still below 2010 levels while the population it serves has grown by more than 60%.

Stop privately owned care homes taking money out of the system. The government could take over the running of them and save the profit element. Offer visas to anyone who will come to this country to work as care givers. Tax inheritance/gifts to children (above a certain level) as income and remove all the ways that people avoid this tax currently

I do think this is the way forward. Young people used to look after their older relatives but now they just push them into homes. It is very sad. I agree that we should be incentivising families to look after their own relatives at home for as long as possible.

It was young women, and now we have full time jobs so can't look after our relatives.

What would the cost difference be do you think if we paid relatives to care rather than say be in a care home?

The people I know who are looking at care homes for relatives are doing it because the 24/7 care required is too much for relatives to do.

"What would the cost difference be do you think if we paid relatives to care rather than say be in a care home?"

At what point will caring for a family member ( either receiving carers allowance or not if you earn too much or if the care is provided by multiple people) cross over into becoming a paid carer for your family member? That will make a difference to the overall cost.

This is untrue. I gave up my full time job to care for my mother in law with the agreement of social services. She was in receipt of direct payments at the time but neither them or I could find a care company or home who could give her the level and type of care she needed. She needed a hoist and was bedbound so we employed someone else to come in 4 times per day to help me hoist her.
I took a small salary drop but that was balanced out by no commuting costs and it worked out cheaper for social services than a specialist home.

When I cared for my mother in law, social services saved around £300 per week. She did need 24/7 care though. I did the majority of care but my husband who had retired did the cooking and all her washing, which was at least 2 loads per day. He was also the first to get up with her during the night and only woke me if she needed personal care.
The direct payments also covered 4 weeks respite per year but unfortunately we never found anywhere that could take her.
We only did it for 2 years until she died though. I'm not sure how much longer we would have managed without respite.