When the time comes for a home

[FinallyHere]

It’s looking as if the time might be coming when a nursing bed in a care home might be the right way forward.

This is for an elderly gentleman who owns his home as tenants in common. I understand he would be referred to ‘social services’ for an assessment and if found to need the nursing bed would be found a bed in a home with no choice around where he would go.

It seems as soon as his funds run out, there would be a charge placed on his home.

Im not really clear about a few details within that overall explanation

what is the current name for ‘social services’

Is that really the process?

how is the value of that home decided to determine the point at which he is considered to have only £23k left and so switch away from self funding

What happens if the value decided upon for his half of the property is significantly above any actual market value?

with many thanks as always lovely people of Mumsnet

A few questions.

What country? (Scotland and NI have different rules).

Who is the other owner of the property? Do they live there?

Does he actually need nursing care (daily medical intervention), or just a residential home?

What funds does he have apart from the property?

If he's starting as a self funded he can choose wherever he likes and there's no need for a social services assessment (although it's worth getting one done in case he qualifies for any non-means-tested funding, and so you can plan for when the money does run out).

The current name for social services is social services.

if he is self funding (paying for it himself) he can choose any home he wants.

if he owns or part owns a house it can get more complicated and it depends where he is, who else owns it, who else lives in it and other factors.

AGEUK are brilliant for this type of query. Legislation changes all the time and they have the most current leaflets. They are also very kind on the phone or email.

Definitely speak to Age UK and read their information leaflets. Assuming you are in England, it seems like you have a lot of misunderstandings (I won't try to correct them as I am not an expert and it would be much better for you to get it all clear from someone who really knows what they are talking about). It is complicated and there is a lot to take in but it is really good that you are researching this before it comes to a "crunch point" (I had no idea what I was doing and would have done things differently if I'd have known).

I will say that your person should get a choice of where they go, and if you do your research you should hopefully be able to find a care home that they can stay in even when their money runs out (some care homes will accept council funding, some won't, and some will require a "top up fee" which you may or may not be able to afford).

Good luck! (And if the process starts to take too much of a toll on you then do ask for help!)

thank you lovely Mumsnetters, the info I left out was England, tenants in common with wife, nursing care required for pleural drain, ulcer dressings, very limited funds other than their property

thank you especially for tip that Age Concern are on this stuff. I suspect they will be even happier to read up themselves. They don’t get have my experience of MN always having the answers so good to direct them to Age Concern. Many thanks.

Wife living in the house means it's excluded from funding calculations. No charge put on it, just left out of consideration entirely.

Ulcer dressing can be done by a visiting district nurse in a residential care home and wouldn't require a nursing home (the latter costs more, but if it is required there's usually also an entitlement to some non-means-tested funding - not much, but covers some of the cost difference between the 2 home types). Not sure about the drain.

They may think that a charge will be put on the house because certain unscrupulous will writing companies will tell you that to sell you a profitable trust. Kicked one out when he sat at my table telling outrageous porkies when we'd already been through the assessment process for 2 parents.

This was our experience of the house. DFIL remained in the house and no charge was put upon