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.

Donal McIntyre did a documentary which confirmed all this. There have been countless other documentaries confirming the same.

Before people think it’s better abroad. Care homes are certainly cheaper abroad.

Note the problem of looking after old people is not a UK problem.

I recall reading during Covid a Spanish elderly care home burnt down. Interestingly, all the care home staff escaped but the elderly burnt alive and died.

At least that nonsense wouldn’t happen in the UK.

Very controversial topic OP, but totally agree. At the very minimum there needs to be a “protected value” of assets that are ignored when establishing your ability to pay.

Its about 10% if you're talking about formal care provided by providers

But isn’t that much more than the % in actual care homes? Either way it’s still a cost to the state…
I thought Teresa May wanted to include assets but it was deeply unpopular. In hindsight it makes sense tbh.

At the very minimum there needs to be a “protected value” of assets that are ignored when establishing your ability to pay.

Any cap should be a %, that seems fairer.

Isn’t it literally already this. If you have no funds you have no choice in where you end up. If you can afford to pay, you have far more choice.

I see individuals who have worked hard all their lives and couldn’t have a hope of having any assets to sell to fund their own care.

I also see individuals who’ve not worked a day in their lives, like my own grandma, who have assets far above anything I’ll ever be blessed with.

hard work does not equal financial security for everyone.

my dad was in a care home. He paid for it from the sale of his house. His money. he was able to.buy the best. Alot of people are annoyed they lose their inheritance but it's their parents money. Make your own

Couldn't have beared to think of him in a crappy one where you had to had to share facilities etc. I don't want that for myself either.

No, its about 10% end up in care homes but of course many of that 10% will be the same people who had care at home first.

The vasts vast vast majority of us wont need a 'care home' or a 'nursing home'.

Because if they've no money and need council carers to come in a few times a day then, after the LA have taken any income above a certain amount, they have to fund the carers.

Not all of it.
Most care homes are owned by investment companies, UK and foreign owned and they are there to make max profit, nothing else. Bit like how vets are run too.

Our experience of FIL in a care home that cost £1,580 a week. Went in with delirium, from the hospital. Before he had delirium after a fall he was living at home, with a carer (paid by us) to come get him up for brekkie and feed him in the eve. He could walk, talk, fine and had all his 'marbles' prior to the fall. He was 95.

Carehome.
Locked him in his bed 24hrs a day. Wouldn't let him get up, seem shocked when we told them - every single bloomin day - that he could walk and please let him get up as he was agitated and we didn't want him to get weak. They walked him to the lounge room, once, in his first week.
Panic button was kept out of reach, then it was removed completely from his room.
Didn't give him soft foods, every day we asked them to do this because the delirium seemed to stop him chewing so well - then they lost his false teeth anyway but they still fed him food he couldn't chew. We had to take things like huge balls of mushed up bread from his mouth that was still there 4hrs after lunch. How he didn't choke is beyond us.
Wouldn't give him a bottle to pee in, wouldn't take him to the toilet, instead insisting he used nappies. We went to find the bottle when he expressed the need to pee upon our daily visit, to be told not to bother as nappies were 'easier' by a staff member. No dignity. We fought for the bottle which FIL used easily himself. They popped into his room once every 3hrs on average, so if he soiled himself just after they left, he sat in it for 3hrs.
They lost his hearing aids. Refused our requests to get in touch with local hospital for a replacement pair.
They lost his glasses. Refused to get him a replacement pair.
Stopped vital medication, on order of the local GP, no reason given and had to fight to get him back on it. No questions we asked were answered, no continuity in staff or care. The only continuity was the bill that landed every month on our doorstep, they never missed that.
Had finger shaped bruises on his arms, legs and face.

He lost 7 stone in a year in the care home, half his body weight. He never came out of the delirium though there was no reason why he couldn't have and we think that's down to dehydration, lack of food and moving him around by care home. We were in the process of getting him out to look after him ourselves as it was heartbreaking to see him just disappear. We wanted him back at his house, had social services involved, moved out of our home and were making room for our things in a couple of rooms and setting up a downstairs bedroom for him when he died.

I think that nursing homes are a cash cow. We paid all that money for him to be neglected. And this was a spotless, clean, fancy looking care home recommended by the hospital. They were bastards imo.

You do have more choice, but don’t fall for the misconception that the ‘nice’ homes only take self-funders.

No I don’t think for a second they do. Just that having the funds to pay for your own means you have far more choice than someone who is reliant on state help.

There is. Once your assets go below about 23K you will still pay for some fees and then once below about 14K you still contribute any income but keep your personal expense allowance.
Your home is protected if your spouse or dependent relative lives in it.

No, its about 10% end up in care homes but of course many of that 10% will be the same people who had care at home first.

So 10% end up in state funded care homes & 10% have state funded care in the home? I always read there was a disparity.

this is basically just attempting to be another benefit bashing thread isn’t it. “People who can’t self fund should have the bare minimum”

Failing to acknowledge that people who can’t self fund could be severely disabled, have spent their whole life caring for someone severely disabled or worked like a dog for their whole life but not been able to get on the property ladder, but no doubt spent the same or more on housing costs - paying someone else’s mortgage instead of their own.

I have to applaud the ability to market the same old grumble in so many different ways in one day though.

It annoys me because I would rather be euthanised than go into a home and have the house I have worked to pay for all my life used to keep me drooling and nodding off in a chair for my final years.

Yes if you are only counting formal care packages provided by a care provider

However people living at home with 'support' or care are also made up of informal, ad hoc family and friends care and/or things like cleaners, someone to come in to do meals, chemist dropping off meds etc etc which arent a formal care package. If hyou include those types of 'care at home' then it rises to around 25%, higher as you get older.

Of the people who have a formal care package, 10% of people, I dont know how many of those are funded by the state because that figure includes people who will be self funders

And then there is the overlap of those who end up going into care, I dont know how you break that down.

My father was in a nursing home that my mum paid for meaning that she went without for months until my dad sadly died
as she could no longer care for him. He had dementia. There was a fabulous cafe downstairs that the staff would bring the “residents” down to to see their visitors so that it felt sociable. They provided tea/coffee/soft drinks and cakes. It was a lovely environment. But of course the people who moaned about the lack of choice for the (free) cakes were the relatives of the residents who did not pay a penny and it gave me the absolute rage at the time and still does.

Care homes providing care for older people remained the care homes with the highest proportion of self-funders (48.9%), which was statistically significantly higher than all other care home types

If she is under DOLS then she should ( must ) have been sectioned, at this point her care should be free. Chase her psychiatrist to check this.

Because if the debt isn't paid she will have to leave the care home! The transition from self -funding to council funding is not straight forward. They council will fight tooth and nail to not have to pay...In that transition period the care home have been charging self funding rates (which are higher) when they really should have been charging council rates meaning there is a debt to be paid! The council won't pay it, she doesn't have the money...So to keep her in the home it has to be paid by someone!!!!! This wouldn't have happened if she had been council funded from the start!

Theres no reason an adult under DOLs will have been sectioned.

A doctor friend of mine told me of a lady in hospital she had to assess whether was of sound mind or not with the lady refusing to go from the hospital to a care home and instead insisting she go home to die. Not because she wanted to die at home and that was also not the medical advise but because she didn’t want her savings eaten up by the care fees. She was deemed of sound mind and was allowed discharge with the medical staff knowing that she really should go to a home to receive the care she medically needed. My friend said this is now more and more
common. Folks choosing to go without care to avoid dying penniless. It matters to people to not die a pauper but to have a crumb to leave to family. So the system is creating a dystopian divide where the “rich” die at home with limited care whilst the “poor” lord if up in care homes paid for by those who won’t access it. All care should either be free for all or paid for by all. The latter is solved in other countries through nominal fees and/or insurance.

I don’t know what the situation is with care home profits. Is it really a very profitable business? I thought some were closing due to strained finances and that many were struggling.

Or what if fees were raised to £50k a week, and the mother was booted out once her funds dried up? It's all huffing and puffing from the ones who can pay, but what if they are very quickly priced out?
Whilst this is hypothetical, don't forget that not long ago almost all accountants, solicitors and doctors could afford to send their children to private school. Many are now priced out and fighting over the best state schools.