AIBU to try and prevent care home fees? Advice appreciated

[Watermelonsuns]

So my parents are elderly, both have health issues but managing well at home. My mum in particular would struggle if something happened to my dad. Recently a friend's parent had to go into a care home and as the parent owned their own house and savings they are self funding and the fees are crazy.
AIBU to try and find a way to protect my parent's property and savings in order its not all gone in care home fees in the last years?
Someone has suggested moving their property into my name but surely that would be an obvious way to avoid fees and would look dodgy? Is there another loop hole im missing? Aby advice from someone working in this area would be appreciated thanks

The current so called system isn’t sustainable. Governments and voters clearly don’t want to think and prepare for the future.

As we can see from @Watermelonsuns‘ posts and the 20% who think she’s not unreasonable in cheating other taxpayers.

What’s that got to do with the current sustainability of the system ?
ie The future

For the zillionth time no you don't always get to choose where you go if you pay.
No they are not necessarily better if you pay
Just because you're paying it doesn't free up a space in the home that you want.
I have family experience of this. We thought the same. You pay you get to choose. But no. It's dependent on the space and the ability to care for the needs. They assess the person and if they say they can't cater for them no amount of money that you have is going to change that.

Doubt all you like. I've seen it from the self funding side. It's the same whether you're paying or not

We are probably all the taxpayer. The only people getting cheated are homeowners who for some reason have to sell their homes to pay for care that everyone else gets for free.

If the home with the cocktail bars and the mini bus does not cater for the needs of the person eg they need one to one then that person does not go in to the home with the cocktail bar and the minibus.
Believe me. It's what my family are in the middle of.
There's a newish one opened by me. Very plush. Very expensive. Elderly neighbour moved in. Family were shocked at the low level of care. Elderly neighbour went on a waiting list to go into an older and incidentally cheaper home. Think they waited a few months. They're now happy in the home without all the bells and whistles.

The care homes with cocktail bars definitely don’t provide better care
A lot of the time they are’fur coats and nae knickers’
People are who have dementia are not going to benefit from the extras and those homes are very much focused on making money

So have I. And it’s not. It depends where you live. 🤷‍♀️

Interesting discussions on here..now add in the assisted dying proposals and you can see why so many people are worried that elderly folk will be encouraged to end their lives rather than deprive their children of their inheritance or why the children might be all for it.

We had the situation recently where hospital told my dad there was nothing more they could do for him and we should find a hospice. But there were no hospice beds available anywhere - so they found him a bed in a NHS continuous care facility. But can you imagine how the conversation would have gone if assisted dying was available? They had already sold a DNR hard "you really don't want to go through that, it can break your ribs" - I could just imagine them presenting ending it all as the best solution for everyone.

As it happens my dad is doing OK, six weeks on. But I think you can't look at the assisted dying proposals without considering how they will interact with the cost and lack of availability of end of life care.

That is really sad that he needed to go into a care home and couldn't be at home with carers and family looking after him until a hospice place became available.

Hcps don't sell DNR because it can break ribs they are in place when someone is dying and resuscitation would be futile.

I don't think hcps would push assisted dying <if it becomes possible>, tbh it would be a rightly complex process and I'd imagine would be totally patient driven.

Sorry about your df .

The thing is, they genuinely thought he only had days left. We were told not to try to take him home, that resuscitation would be pointless, yet here we are six weeks on and he is sitting up chatting, watching tv, drinking and eating....

The bigger point I'm making is that the pressure to end your life given the constraints on the nhs and family finances is all part and parcel of end of life discussions.

I contributed to the thread earlier but want to add another point.
There is clearly a major difference between the care needs of elderly in care homes. Some are there and would benefit from the bells and whistles of the days out, the classes and entertainment and such. Some are there with very end stage dementia showing violence etc and totally oblivious to the bells and whistles. Surely by that stage what they need is CHC and that should be covered by nhs. I would hope that between us we could care for either parent if they need it until it becomes totally untenable.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I totally get that people living just in a different setting getting supported should pay if they can. But people who need extensive care should have this provided

My mother had a fall and we were faced with making a number of major decisions on her behalf, without knowing the extent to which she would recover her mental ability. In the event, the fall and hip replacement may have speeded up her cognitive decline, but she never recovered to the extent that she could question the decisions we made. But at the time this was a real possibility.

My GP cousin put it well. As long as we made decisions that we felt were in her best interests, this was fine. With the benefit of hindsight we would know whether they were the right decisions. There is no crystal ball so you can only do your best.

Would you say the same about prostate cancer?

That's just not correct. In any area there will be homes that you can access if you are self-funding, that you can't access if you are council funded.

Yes, if you go to a home that takes council funded residents, and you self-pay, then you get the same service regardless of funding. But they are by far the less good places.

Obviously not because the two aren’t remotely compatible. Much as it pains me to use the Mail as evidence…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7142303/Dementia-kills-TWICE-75s-did-decade-ago.html

I agree
The level of care needed should determine who pays
Not the ability to do so.

Much as it pains me to reference the Mail article 🥴 they are quite right in saying
The global burden is set to get worse

So clearly we, as a country, need to set something in motion now to deal with that burden. Not everyone that gets dementia has money to pay for care. Going by the 50/50 current stats on funding Half of those in care are tax payer funded. As that number grows, which it will, how do our Council Taxes pay for that.

We need a solution for the future. Sticky plasters always fall off eventually.

Define less good

Lower staff/resident ratios, poorer food, fewer activities, fewer ensuite rooms.

Agree at @Cosyblankets , lots of sweeping statements here that are not the same everywhere.

Every home we looked at across three local council areas took everyone.
What room you got was purely dependent on what was available.
At one home we were offered a very tiny room no en-suite ( it was the only place available in the area ) and it wasn’t till my MIL was moving in to that room and I asked if they had a wardrobe that I was taken to a much larger room to get it. I asked why she couldn’t have that room which was en-suite and they said it wasn’t available when we looked and said as it was now so she could swap.
If whats being said here is correct then as a self funder she would have been offered that before we started moving in.
The tiny room with no en-suite went the next day to another self funder.

2 self founders in remarkably different rooms. One in a tiny room no en-suite. The majority of rooms were all large ( Large Edwardian house ) with en-suites.
Why was the self finder in such a tiny space is by MNs comments on here they get so much more and ‘you get what you pay for’

Thats not real life across the board, not for everyone.

I’ve commented before about other homes for my dad. Purpose built, all rooms exactly the same, takes everyone.

It'll be like private hospitals via NHS hospitals, better soft furnishings perhaps privately but the quality of care won't be any different as there are strict rules and checks for these things.

One of our relatives started out self funding, now is funded once the cash was drained but they are in the same place getting exactly the same care.

Might be a postcode thing but I believe most homes, expensive or not, have ensuites. Can you imagine a floor full of 90yr olds queuing uo to use a bathroom.

There are plenty of homes without en-suites. I looked at and rejected two of them.

There were new building regs some time ago stating
no room sharing unless you are a couple
and
all ensuites
but that’s just for new builds or those being refurbished.

So they do still exist if an existing property can’t accommodate the upgrade.

I remember designing a new one ( Sevenoaks area ) with existing as well and writing a report re the costs of the upgrade. We built the new to requirements but the existing property lost a lot of rooms to do so as well. Everything costs, bites into the budget and increases fees.

Ah right yes, only newer builds that I've visited.