How on earth can you afford care?

[Strawberriesandpuppies]

We are currently looking at care homes for DM who needs 24/7 care. Fees range from £1200 to £1700 per week. DM has more than £24k savings and a house we can sell but at those rates we will run out of money in 2-3 years. How do people afford it? What happens when the money runs out, would she be evicted?

Do t the council kick in when the monies get to a certain level ?

I think when the money runs out the state starts to pay although she can keep about £23, 000 of the money.

When her money runs out the council will step in to provide care. However, if she is somewhere very expensive they may not fund that home but want her to move to somewhere less expensive that can meet her needs.

The thresholds for care funding are changing, and your mum may qualify for the nursing portion of her care to be paid for, or even the whole cost in time, so you may not need to panic.

We ran the tightrope with my mum too - in the end she died peacefully before her money ran out.

The council will pay when the money runs out from both savings and sale of house. If the care home fees are more than the allowance from the LA then you may have to look for a cheaper care home unless family want to top up the fees

Have you considered live-in carers? It could be more cost-effective, especially if family are able to help out some of the time.

Yes, this could be an option but I am finding difficult to find an agency who can provide it and can't get my head around how it works. I can't imagine DM sharing her house with a stranger.

Once you get down to about £23,000 social services will step in and do a financial assessment and the care home fees will be paid. There is a chance that they won't cover all fees if the home is too expensive though.

My aunt has a live in carer paid for by the authorities. My parents couldn't have that because they lived in a one bed bungalow.

When my dad had a stroke and ended up in a care home straight from hospital we paid for day time carers to keep an eye on mum. Literally just that. They sat in her house for hours every day because my mum wouldn't let them do anything for her. She had dementia so they were there to make sure she didn't burn the place down.

Even with no personal care included it was very expensive. I dread to think how much a privately funded live in carer would cost.

@Strawberriesandpuppies Hi, for the last couple of years my mother has had the same issue as we required full time care for my grandmother who had dementia and I can tell you it is ridiculously expensive.

We were able to keep my Nan at home as my mum rented out a few of the rooms in the house. Luckily, one room was to my brother, another room was to a carer (who used to care for my Nan part time but wasn't looking after her when she moved into the house). It was people in the house who we trusted but it produced a good income to cover her daytime care.

We looked at agencies carers but just like agency nannies they are very expensive. My Nan towards the end didn't move from her chair, she was very easy to look after and just needed someone to feed her and give her medication and to watch over her during the day. Through word of mouth (again from carers who used to look after her) we managed to find a lovely lady who was looking for a care position. It wasn't through an agency so we didn't have massive fees to pay and it gave us more freedom to negotiate salary. Don't get me wrong, it still wasn't cheap but it was the cheaper option and also meant we could keep her at home.

I know it's really tough and it deeply saddens me that care for the elderly is so expensive. I also know how much it is worry for the families as well as we only want the best for our loved ones.

Apparently the cist if live in care is between £120 and £150 a day. That doesn't add up to any savings against care home costs as the home still needs to be maintained, bills paid and food bought. Obviously it might be better for other reasons, but saving money won't be one of those.

It doesn't sadden me that it costs so much. It's a challenging job that most of us wouldn't want go do and I don't think carers are paid enough or appreciated enough.

We do it with final salary pension (35k ish), rental income from the house and a care home in a small village where staff are kind but it's cheap. All funded out of income. It's not nursing care but we pay under 500 a week.

Pension & house rental. Live in is unlikely to be cheaper if it's really 24 hours.

Thank you everyone, I will keep researching the options. I am overwhelmed by the complexity of it all, I cannot see the wood for the trees and just when I think I am making progress I panic about how we are going to pay for it. I don't be-grudge the money to the carers and I know it's an extremely difficult job.

We are in a situation where the house isn’t being sold until she has died, so we are maintaining the house from her account just to have to sell it and pay it back to the council.

Have a look at an organisation like CareHomeSelection - they are used to helping people in your situation and can help you think through the best approach as well as find good homes in your area.

Don’t worry about the cost. The Council will take over. Concentrate on finding a home with a good atmosphere which is easy for you to visit.

If you haven’t already, apply for Attendance Allowance, which will reduce what your mother has to pay by about £90 a week. Not much but it all helps.

Is she looking at care homes or nursing homes? The fees you quote in my area are what nursing homes charge, care homes are a little cheaper.

you won’t want to think about this, but the average length of stay in a care home is under 3 years, in a nursing home about a year, which is why people do afford it.

Nursing versus residential is another dilemma. She is medically fit, but crippled with arthritis so has virtually zero mobility. So I think she would technically be residential. One care home has provision for both and the difference in price was about £187 p/w but they said we could claim that back.

Thank you Will have a look at this

If you don’t have substantial finances, you don’t get to choose one of the lovely care homes in the brochures.

You talk to your local council about a care assessment. If they are in agreement that a care home is necessary, they will tell you which ones they will fund (once your mum’s assets have been spent up to the threshold - currently £23,500).

Don’t worry about this. The ones they will fund may not have elegant silver haired ladies in pearls laughing on pale coloured sofas, but that doesn’t mean that the actual care will be worse.

Pension and renting out her house. I also don’t think live in care is cheaper and brings its own set of issues.

@Strawberriesandpuppies I would check out the Age UK website and give their Information and Advice line a call with any qu’s. Their advisors are extremely knowledgeable and can help you navigate the system.

Agreed that you need to check that the care home will take her - we found that when push came to shove, the care home we 'chose' for my mum refused to take her unless she had a minimum of 2 years' fees already in the bank in cash. We hadn't sold hr flat at that time and so we didn't have the cash available. The local authority may be able to take a charge on the flat to be paid after it's been sold, but the private care home couldn't or wouldn't.

In fact her needs were so complex that the council-funded place at a home she ended up in broke down within 48 hours. Probably the same would have been the case at the private home.

I would get a good assessment of needs by social services and go from there. I hope it's better than ours was - I'm still mildly angry with the complete uselessness of the hospital social worker but the end result has been better so however poor the journey, it would be a bit bad to complain about the good outcome.

I have just replied to another thread about cars costs. I bought an immediate needs annuity for my mothers care home costs. It was a big chunk Of her savings but as she is physically not too bad (has vascular and Alzheimer's dementia) after five years it pays for itself and the rest of the savings are pretty much protected. But get independent advice first. We are three years in and she has been pretty much stable and showing no signs of further serious decline yet.

Care costs, not car costs!