Care needs and financial assessment

[FYDistress]

Does anyone know if it is sensible to have a financial assessment sooner rather than later? My father has been discharged from hospital with a high support re-enablement package (carers, OT and physio) which is funded for six weeks. The social worker is coming to assess ongoing need next week (week 4) and they have sent us a financial assessment form. I think my father will need ongoing support but is certainly going to be self-funding (house worth over a million, savings over 100K and good pension income). He wants to stay in his house and is only in his early 80s but has a progressive disability and may need quite a lot of care (live-in, multiple carers etc) now or in the future. Is there any benefit to him of doing the financial assessment now or can we reapply if needed if/when his savings run out. There seems to be a lot of forms to fill in/evidence to provide or we can just tick self funding on them. We are of course expecting him to pay for his own care for as long as he can but I don't want to make it harder for him in the future by being lazy now ( but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed).

You don't have to fill in those forms if you are self funding. Wait until you need funding, then fill them in.

When you can forsee him running out of money in the next 3-6 months, then do the financial assessment. But not now, you’ve got enough going on.

Agreed, no point doing it now. When working out your 'about to run out' point, remember the house value doesn't count while he's living in it.

No point filling in forms if self funding.

Make sure he has attendance allowance - it’s not means tested

You would be better off asking the social worker, you don’t say where you live and things are different in different parts of the UK and often from county to county. For example where I am the cost of domiciliary care is capped even for self funders so care via social services is much cheaper than paying privately. We also do an income maximisation as part of the financial assessment to ensure people are getting all of the money they are entitled to, which can help to offset some of the costs.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/financial-assessment/

if he's planning to stay at home and it's viable to do so, property would be disregarded

I did one straight away for mum, and although she is self funding her twice a day care was organised by the local council who handle the billing from the care company for us and I then pay the council (who charge a small admin fee). I'm not sure if the charge is cheaper than we would get it if we went directly to the care company as self funders, but it made it more straightforward to set up as otherwise I would have had to try to find a care company myself from a distance at short notice.