Fed up of reading threads asking how they can get out of paying care home fees.

[Nextdoortomeis]

As per the title.
I'm sure lots of people would like the state to pay care home fees.
But we don't live in a fair world.
Both mum and mil paid nearly £70k in fees
yes I didn't want to pay but I also wanted them to get the best care in their later years.

Everyone can do that though including the kids of tax payer funded people.

You tagged a poster bringing up the cradle to grave issue
So that’s zero to death

I do agree though. If it’s free for some it should be free for all. Why should just tax payers be required to pay again for something they’ve already paid for !

If you aren’t willing/capable to care for elderly relatives then don’t expect an inheritance. Equally if you don’t have family to care for you in your old age then expect to pay for care.

I just wish the money that was paid for care actually went to the carers! And not wealthy CEO’s running unscrupulous care homes paying carers minimum wage.

There needs to be a total overhaul of the service starting with paying Carers what they are worth! We are probably all going to need some form of care in our old age, it’s to our benefit to push for reform now. Would you rather be cared for by someone who feels undervalued, overworked and looked down on in society (thereby causing resentment) or someone who is paid fairly for their work and feels appreciated. No matter what star rating etc the care home has, these are the ppl who are actually doing the hardwork for minimum pay. I’m not a Carer but have had family members in care homes and the stress, frustration and sheer hard work of the actual carers is to be commended. Pay them what they’re worth and we’ll all be happy in the long run

This ^^
My dad went into a care home 4 years ago, dementia. I had to sell his house and £180k went on fees until his funds reached the upper care limit of £23,250. The local authority then paid most of the fees and this was topped up with his pensions. The total then paid was no where near the figure he was paying when he was self-funding, this is the part that makes me angry. I sensibly bought a pre-paid funeral from his funds when they got close to UCL. He died 2 weeks ago, leaving £22,000.

Isn't that you sponging off the tax payer?

@Panterusblackish totally agree, care homes should not be commercial enterprises.

Then then many parts of the NHS are private and always have been like GP practices and Dentist practices.
At one point loads of them were owned by footballers or retired footballers.

Or maybe it should be a choice, NHS type care homes or if you want better go private.

@twiddlingthumbs69 I'll agree with you too. It's ridiculous that people get better money stacking shelfs than caring for elderly and vulnerable people.
And that's kind of rolled into care being the priority rather than profit.

Sevenoaks has the highest number of self funders at 78%
Generally the SEast has the most and the North the least

Here's some figures including
A graph comparing funding by age ( as a pp mentioned this )

And why not

Although hardly sponging if they’ve payed so much into it. Just getting something out from something they’ve already paid into

Good for you @Ablondiebutagoody

@LBFseBrom

I agree, dementia is something that generally cannot be accommodated at home. Many patients need 24 hour care and supervision, they can be impulsive, sometimes aggressive and a danger to themselves and others. It's terribly, terribly sad but specialised residential care is necessary for them.*

Yes, I agree too. We tried to keep MIL in her own home, caring for her between ourselves, which worked at first but as her condition got worse, she was dangerous. She'd always been independent and always walked to the shops virtually every day, to the library, etc. Trouble was, she started forgetting where she lived, not just the street, but the town, so instead of leaving her drive and walking to the right to the newsagents, she'd walk to the left (as she used to do a few decades ago) and would get lost. Then she'd not known how to get back home - she could even walk straight past her house and not recognise it because she'd forgotten she'd moved and would be looking for a 3 storey terraced house instead of the bungalow she'd lived in for 20 years. The next day, she'd turn right, get her paper, and go straight home, no problem at all. It was so haphazard.

We turned up one morning to find her electric alarm clock on the lounge floor with the flex cut. She'd no knowledge of cutting it. But the bedroom circuit breaker had blown and there was a pair of scissors on the bedside table. She'd clearly got annoyed by it and instead of turning it off or unplugging it, she'd gone for the scissors to cut the cable, thus tripping the electrics.

Another time, she'd clearly had a blown bulb in her lounge and decided to change the bulb, something she'd done hundreds of times in her life. We turned up and the light fitting was hanging from the ceiling, broken light shade, broken bulb with glass all over the floor. Again, she'd no idea what she'd done.

She just wasn't safe to leave on her own for any time at all, so we had to organise 24 hour care for her at home, but she'd not let them in, would start getting aggressive when they turned up as she'd forget who they were from the day before, basically chase them out of the house with a stick!

So we fully understand why residential care homes are the only viable answer for those with advanced dementia.

@coldandfrostymorning23
Its actually three times more in England. Based on published averages

See previous post. It amounts to £44,000 more than a tax payer funded place.

Its an absolute disgrace isn’t it @CalmFox . 💐 sorry for your loss 💐

But at the point of needing to go in a home, will you really care much about the home you'll be living in? Or maybe the better question is, will you even have the capacity to care?

I haven't read all your posts, but you, and many people on this thread, infer that care homes in the UK are either shit (and that's where the state-funded people live) or are the bells and whistles homes (where the self-funders live). If you really do think this, you're deluded.

This. I’ve worked in the care home sector and although I don’t think any care home provides the kind of care it should, the “private” homes are much nicer than the local authority ones - en-suite, nice communal areas, better meals, gardens, mini-buses and activities co-ordinators to take people out for the day etc.

I’ve been in local authority homes that are so depressingly grim. As if going into care wasn’t bad enough - you’d definitely want to chose where you lived.

There are hardly any local authority owned homes now.

Agree
I often think it’s a way of saying the poor get tat. So lucky you if you’re a self funder 🤣🤣🤣. It’s just not true

My self funding relative had no choice
She took what was available
There was only two places available locally and one was for nursing care only.

She was one of three self funding. Out of 15 in the home.

My dad was the same with only one free place when he needed it in Watford. Luckily at a new build home. It took all people regardless of how they were financed. He had no choice as he was in hospital waiting to be moved. ( he didn’t need it in the end but we went through the process of finding a place as quickly as possible )

The majority of homes are much the same and I’ve looked in different areas for three people in all.

Where i am the local authorities closed their homes decades ago. Partly because they couldn't afford to up grade them to single rooms.
All homes are private.

Very few purely local authority funded care homes these days.
Those days are gone

I’m not remotely deluded. Finding a suitable care homes for my parents gave me a very close acquaintanceship with reality. I might not care then but I do now and I want the kind of home I chose for my loved ones, not one of the shit heaps I viewed where I wouldn’t put a dog.

Those upgrades and changes were made to building regs in about 2000.

I worked on one in the Sevenoaks area. The only way they could afford to run the place once people weren’t supposed to share ( unless they wanted to or were a couple ) was to build a massive extension.

Many places closed though

Can you tell us the weekly cost @Blossomtoes

How did the purchased council house not get sold to fund the fees??

Around £1500 a week.

And those homes very likely had state-funders living n them.

The one my parents were in took only self funders. They had no need to take state funded residents.

So not far off the average £1.4K for all homes:

https://lottie.org/fees-funding/care-home-costs/