Care home fees

[user1478112490]

My mother in law has to go into residential care. She currently lives in London (Brent) and all of her family live in Hertfordshire so we have asked that the home be near us. Does anyone have any experience of how the funding works when it is in another part of the country? She will not be self funding so Social Services will be paying-the Brent Social Worker was a bit vague as to how this works in reality and if or when do Herts County Council take over the funding. HCC have said that I need to speak to Brent and Brent are saying I need to speak to HCC. I am concerned that Brent will agree to pay a certain amount and we find a suitable care home and then HCC take over and say the fees are too much. I don't want to have to move her again as it has taken some persuading to get to this stage.

My mum has just gone into a 4 week placement at a care home while the financial assessment is being completed . She has to contribute a bit towards her care out of her pension
it’s all confusing and we have also been passed on to different people nobody seems to take responsibility for anything
i would speak to whoever is dealing with the financial assessment

Is she at home at the moment or in hospital ?

She is at home at the moment. We
did the same with my dad last year but he got CHC funding and would have been self funding anyway. There must be precedents for this but Brent and HCC aren't being very helpful. As previously advised I will just have to wait to ask when the funding forms are completed or maybe ask at the care homes we are visiting.

Has your MIL been assigned a social worker OP? They're usually pretty helpful at steering you through the process & liaising with the agencies involved.

This may help:

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs29_finding_choosing_and_funding_a_care_home_fcs.pdf#page22

I think you’ll find that you will need to find a care home in Herts yourself and then try to get HCC to pay for it.

This I imagine may be problematic as HCC may not want to pay for a care home place for someone from a different authority; and equally once she has a place in Herts I doubt Brent will want to pay for it. I would be inclined to move her into your place in Herts for a short period and then it should become Herts ball-park.

I very much doubt Brent will attempt to find you a place outside of their authority area.

If Brent agree to fund a residential placement (start off with asking for a care act assessment) you can find out the rate they will pay and then search for a home in HCC that will take that rate. As she is ordinarily resident in Brent HCC won't have anything to do with it.

You need to speak to the financial assessment team at the LA where she currently lives. They will be able to tell you the procedure. I know when my MIL was in a home in her LA, she wanted to move nearer to us in the neighbouring LA and her LA said they were fine with paying at their rate. As the LAs are adjacent, they both pay the same amount towards care home fees anyway.
It may well be that care homes where the OP lives are cheaper than where the DM lives, so the LA will be happy to pay as it will cost them less.

You could call the Age UK advice line, they’re trained in exactly this type of query. Details on their website. Good luck OP x

Thanks for the advice all. I will get back to the social worker at Brent and ask them to find out exactly what the procedure is-they didn't know so it's a learning curve for both of us!