Savings/care costs advice please?

[Greatcheeser]

My father may need care in his home or in a nursing home. He has no property, a state pension income and savings of c. £50k.

Will he have to use his savings to pay for his care? Is there an allowance that he can keep rather than having to spend all his savings?

He can keep £16k if I remember correctly. It may be more now. However, he can’t just ‘spend’ it as that would be deprivation of assets.

There is a NHS Funding Care website that gives you all the info you need. The durst thing would be to Have him assessed for his care needs by social services. Does he need any help at home at the moment, if so he might be entitled to attendance allowance and the person providing the care carers allowance. What is his home and care needs situation at the moment if you're happy to share with us. I think you have to lay if you have more than 23.5k but that could depend of what help he needs.

Just moved my mum into Care Home with similar background. She has to self fund until her money drops to around £23,000, then social services will help part fund. When money then drops below the threshold of around £14,000, they will take all pension and income (you can keep about £23 a week!) and pay the balance up to their limit.

You can't move/spend any funds to get to the lower limits quicker. They go back 7 years to check your accounts for deprivation of assets! They only legitimate spend is a funeral plan

There's little point in saving for your old age as they take every penny - apart from your £23 a week "pocket money"

What mumisaworry said.

Unless your father meets CHC criteria in which case his care should be funded by the NHS. However my FIL has made it through his entire dementia journey with only meeting CHC criteria for 3 days - he's dying now and will go in the next couple of days. So do not bank on this.

Thank you for all your replies.

AGEUK have lots of really helpful fact sheets. Well worth contacting them.