To think it's unfair to sell your home to fund care when older while others pay nothing.

[SonnyHoney]

I provide healthcare services to older people, which means I regularly visit care homes. It’s something I find quite upsetting at times. I see individuals who have worked hard all their lives, paid off their mortgages, and are now facing care home fees of around £2,000 a week.

Meanwhile, others are living in the same care homes with their costs largely covered, aside from a contribution from their pension.

I say this as someone from a working-class background and daughter of an immigrant (El salvador) who has had to work incredibly hard to get to where I am financially. I’m also very aware that one day my own parents may have to sell their home to fund their care.
My mum, for example, has run a cleaning business for years, she’s up early every morning and has worked long, physically demanding hours. She hopes to pass something on, but realistically, I feel it will likely be used to cover care costs .

Before anyone says “Why don’t you just care for her yourself and keep the house?” And of course, if I’m in a position to do that, I will. But the reality is that with older age, there can come a point where needs become too complex, and care at home is no longer possible.

Obviously, those who don't have houses to sell need care and have to go to a care home, but my point is it just feels unfair, really.

That's why the government's of all stripes are pushing for euthanasia. It will be voluntary at first and then then the patients with dementias will be next.
Look how they put DNRs on elderly and disabled patients in care homes without their consent during covid.
Those who are reliant on the tax payer first to save the councils and government money. It's coming.

Agreed, so my Dad had Early Onset Alzheimer’s and went in to a care home at 64.
His was fully funded and I believe, if I remember correctly, it was because he could do nothing at all for himself. He was incontinent, couldn’t speak, couldn’t walk etc.
But I saw relatives of other dementia patients, not only dealing with watching their loved ones suffer with such a wicked disease but also face losing their home. It’s just awful. And as you quite rightly point out, it’s not as if they all receive the level of care you would expect for such a large sum of money. There was one carer at night time per floor, who was expected to look after 15 or so residents alone.
My Mum and I visited every day to feed my Dad and put him to bed but the things we saw were shocking. It’s a terrible system.

They magically managed to not pay tent all their lives? Now there's an interesting trick. You should let us all know how to do that!

My mother’s house was sold to pay for her care
She is well looked after and I have peace of mind
For 18 months prior to this my sister and I stayed alternate nights
Not because of the money but because she wanted to stay at home
I don’t think about the money,it is her money and is being spent on her care

Hang on!! Don’t assume everyone old needs a care home!!! Both grandparents had sudden heart attacks and died. They lived in their own homes the whole time. Likewise the other set of grandparents aged 80 and 75 sudden strokes and heart attacks and died instantly, all lived in their own homes. They paid for cleaners & kids did the weekly shop & sorted out the bills. No care homes involved. All those elderly still had their faculties.

Not all old people need care homes. Why should the elderly who don’t need care homes, fund care for those who do?

in all instances, it should be the kids who retain that choice - either pay up if you aren’t prepared to look after your own parents, or sacrifice your time to look after your own parents.

my only wish is that this situation is heavily discussed in schools, so teenagers understand there’s no free ride, financial responsibility, pensions, what to expect in relationships I.e not putting up with domestic violence, etc, scam alerts, community responsibility, ie reporting criminal acts, picking up litter, as part of compulsory citizenship classes.

Because this isn’t done, people seem to get a rude awakening at 50 when it suddenly dawns on them who is going to look after them after decades of hedonism and selfish behaviour being condoned.

I took that to be a typo to say that had they rented the Mum would have got the care "for free". Which implies she didn't get the care "for free"? Anyway, unless @Onemoremakesthree comes back to clarify, we won't know. Which is a shame as if the LA has acted illegally, it will have a case to answer and be in deep shit.

She would be getting exactly the same care if she didn't have a house to sell. It was her money, not the council's.
Our lifetime of taxes should pay for health and social care not our personal belongings.

I worked in a private nursing home in the 90s. It was an absolute racket. I have since met people who made their not inconsiderable wealth out of that 'industry'. We had to have fundraising events for new equipment, whilst the owners turned up periodically in a Bentley with a personalised number plate. Apart from the registered nurses, none of us carers underwent any formal training even in lifting and handling.

Patients had bruises from poor lifting technique, there was only one hoist in the whole building.

It's better regulated than it was, but it still isn't enough. I am hoping I will be able to spare my own parents that.

Yes

long time ago but I remember one such family pleading poverty when asked to fund a school trip in Y6 but were driving around in a very nice car with the latest reg something didn’t quite add up, always want others to pay for them and plead poverty

They sell insurance policies to cover this in the US. I think that needs implementing immediately needed implementing 30 years ago.

There are no state nursing homes any more. If you cant afford to pay they will try to keep you at home with carers popping in and out. If you really need a nursing home, social services will decide which one to put you in and take your pension. If you have savings over £23k you get no help. Our local borough will not pay unless you have dementia.

Of course it’s horribly unfair for the following reasons:

1. If you have eg dementia, it isn’t covered while other medical conditions are treated in the NHS;
2. Self funders subsidise council funded people (max ceiling paid) in the CH;
3. People with huge houses can har much cheaper live in help more easily;
4. It creates perverse incentives to give away houses to children and thereby deprive the state of IHT; and the big one
5. It reduces motivation to work and be productive which our society can ill afford.

Hearing stories from the guy sitting next to you about how clever he is to have avoided paying £2200 per week must be absolutely soul destroying for elderly people who have worked all their lives in the hope and expectation of leaving their families something and ensuring they have easier lives. They haven’t worked to give CH operators easier lives. As usual it’s the strivers who are trying to make something of themselves who get hammered by the policy. It holds back social mobility within the middle class as a result.

You see I struggle with this as I work in care, have done for 15 years and we work so hard, extra unpaid time on top of 12.5hr shifts, dealing with very difficult situations, sitting with people as they die because they've no family or family only care when they can get the rest of their money, being attacked in some care settings etc. However, on a personal level for the residents, it does seem like "minimal care" for what they should be getting, privately funded or not, every human deserves the best care in their final years. However, we work on the fewest staff the owners can legally get away with, there isn't enough time to just "be" with residents. We'd love to spend more time with them but we already are stretched so thin and we work through our unpaid breaks.

This isn't fair to those requiring care, however much or little they pay for it.

This is me but in a different situation.

I've saved up since I started working full time in my early 20s.

Unlike almost all of my peers at the time, I saved hard. I didn't go travelling, didn't go to any festivals, had minimal holidays in comparison, hardly drank, didn't have a car, and didn't have any fancy clothes or gadgets or the latest smartphone.

I still can't afford a decent house even now in my late 30s, and I've mostly worked full time for all these years. I can just about afford a scummy one that needs tens of thousands of pounds of work and that has knotweed, but not a normal place that is large and suitable enough for a modern adult.

When I applied for a help to buy local government scheme, I had to fill an incredibly detailed and quite intrusive application form, only to be told at the was told I wasn't entitled to any help at all because I had too much in savings and could technically afford to buy somewhere.

When I pointed out what I've detailed above and that it's effectively an illusion that there's a lot of reasonably priced houses in my area, and that I was single, meaning that all the mortgage payments and other bills would be on me alone, they weren't interested. They do a quick search on RightMove and if they deem you can afford any ,money sink-hole, it's cased closed. I get zero help.

I actually cried down the phone that day at the assessor. What a fool I've been. I should have lived it up in my youth gone travelling, spent it away like so many I knew. Then I'd have very little in savings and could then get some government help. I'm from a working class background, but no one gives a fuck.

Horrific care homes and the poorest in society, both those who cant work and those working, having no ability to afford this is no less fixed in the US. Even remotely.

No. My mother thought she was working and saving for a rainy day (which meant denying herself many little luxuries) but it turned out that those like her cousin who didn’t work or save but spent their money on the luxuries were provided with an identical free umbrella anyway.

My parents were Tennants in Common. When Mum passed, her share came to my siblings.... so Dad technically only owns half the house he is in

All I can say is thank God for the assisted dying act being passed through government.

for those hypocrites who have religious objections, then look after your parents yourself - crickets silence - oh look - nobody wants to look after their own parents anymore, but want the magic tax fairy to miraculously give 24/7 tax funded care to their parents for 30 years costing tens of millions per person.

Oh looky that - want to steal other people’s taxes just because they can’t be bothered looking after their own parents. Got it.

Let’s wait until the whole welfare budget collapses. Then you will ALL have to look after your own parents. Unless you pay of course.

I so agree @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. if virtually all estates paid significant inheritance tax then everyone with parents who had assets would lose some of them but it would be consistent and distributed across all those with means to fund social care.

Look at my post above. This is what happened to me. @Dansangry

That's very fair but if the children cannot afford to care for the parents, then the parents must pay for themselves.

So the person who can afford private insurance pays it, pays all their life and essentially pays for their care that way

The person who cannot afford private insurance (because while you say compulsory, it cant be forced if you dont work or live on benefits or are disabled or whatever, how do you force it?), that person gets their care paid for in the sam way as now

How does that change anything significantly, apart from boosting insurance companies profits as the vast majority of people wont need care, so I'll pay all my life and it will be wasted money

But the population is ageing so we’d be heaping more costs on the generation coming through.

I don’t doubt the careers do the best they can.

But the care is still Very lacking for what a decent level of care should be especially for the costs.

Again my friend does kitchen work, a family member was in covid years private private so they went into a care facility to still Provide private care to their one resident, they where still regularly picking up the extras for other residents even though they shouldn’t of been. Even simple
things like cups of tea.

Same in hospitals at the moment. People who have had strokes who want to get back up and going again unless their families are pushing for it are seemingly left to rather rot in their beds rather than the extra care to be able to make the mobile again for those who can.

I saw a documentary some years ago about the elderly in Japan playing the prison game in their older years as they didn’t have enough to live on and didn’t want to burden family for support

They basically committed a crime like stealing and were put in jail for a while. All free. They are released eventually and do the same again
Whole prisons of elderly people due to lack of elderly support in the state system

Tragic