Just out of interest, what are your elderly parents care home fees?

[Tolkienista]

My mother moved into a care home in August 2024, the cost per week (as a self funder £945) Last April the fees went up to (£1,010) per week. In the last week the fees have gone up to (£1,050) per week. It's an excellent place, her room is lovely and well furnished, great carers too who look after her so well.
It genuinely feels like our second home.

In all honesty , never thought we'd make it to this latest fees increase. She's been on end of life care for the last 6/7 weeks , but has remained stable, although she's really frail and weak.
And so we've entered this new round of fees.

I think we're very lucky that her fees are in this region close to £1,000 per week .
How are others faring?

1500 per week/£6000 pcm north west (self funded till she runs out I guess)
various services not included in that cost

The tax payer if no money or you sell your house and its funded like that. I had both parents in self funded care homes. Dad's was £8k per month 3 years go in West London. Anyone being funded by council will not be paying £8k per month. The self funders are covering the shortfall.

Also,many of the residents are very very needy. There was one women next to Dad who just used the buzzer all day and night when not asleep. The carer would leave the room and just as she was going the buzzer would be pressed again. People wandering around trying to get into each other's bed. Stealing from other residents, never leave anything valuable - it will go missing.

😭😭😭

I would have no issue with care home fees if they represented value for money. FFS, ours has gone to £6000 pcm and for that you get a crappy room that needs a paint, cheap laminate flooring, substandard food and limited "care". And that's one of the "good" ones.
I looked at yesterday's menu and it was sandwiches for lunch and then fish (MIL hates) or broccoli pasta for tea. Which 91 year olds would eat broccoli pasta? where is the protein?? (cheese likely but come on). She is frail by the way.

Reading these posts make me realise how lucky my family are to have found an amazing nursing home for my DM. There is a nurse on each floor of 10 or 11 residents, a GP review every Wednesday, a few activities (my mum is rarely up to participating in them), the food is decent, if the residents don’t eat the main meals then sandwiches, fruit, yoghurt etc are constantly offered. The room is large and my DM’s has French doors to a small communal garden.
The staff ratio is excellent and they genuinely do seem to care about the residents. Family are welcome at any time, I always phone ahead but there’s no requirement to do so.
This was the eleventh home I viewed, some I didn’t like, some I liked but they were not suitable for my DM and others wouldn’t accept her because of complex needs.

You are VERY lucky. In our area it was incredibly difficult to find anywhere that had a place! All full.

Not necessarily the tax payer. In our area of London the council will only pay for a nursing home if the person a) has no money and b) has dementia. Otherwise they suggest four carer’s visits a day.

£2,500 per week dementia and nursing care. Immobile, minimal speech. North London. Been there for 4 years so far. But was cheaper at the beginning. Her needs increased and inflation etc.
But I have confidence in the care she is receiving. She seems happy and the staff are lovely. Not sure how the staff remain so lovely. I wouldn’t last 2 minutes in their jobs.

ex in law’s cost £2500 a week 6 years ago as needed 1:1 24/7 (officially, when she slept I know they left her but she didn’t sleep normal hours) and 2:1 for certain times of the day. To those say it’s a lot - think about it, 168 hours a week at £15 an hour is £2520. Dsd’s package (working age adult) now is over £4K a week and doesn’t even include housing or food as that’s paid for out of uc, simply for 24/7 care, it’s what it costs

@lazymum99 I too have no idea how the care staff manage to do their jobs with so much patience and kindness. I cringe when I hear how DM speaks to them ( is dementia and she wouldn’t have been like that before) and the high fees don’t translate into high wages, certainly not for the on the ground carers.

Feels like care homes are a mechanism to extract the equity from the property bubble.
What would happen if there was some sort of crash/correction?

Everyone needs to be aware of this

I honestly think 2 things need to happen- a ring fenced insurance scheme at 2% of salary after 40 , if not working then exempt at that point. Amount to be taken in any assets then limited to £80k and then insurance kicks in- thiszwoukd be for both care homes and care at home.,

also I think the gvt need to gradually buyout and renationalise the social care sector - take it out of local authority funding and make it all ‘not for profit’ - refurb any tatty ones..that way costs can be constantly assessed and controlled and all income generated to cover costs and go back into the unit. Same for care at home -

I used to do the accounts for 2 nursing homes and they both made tidy profits after nice salaries for the senior managers..

This is all terrifying and I am sure a previous taskforce from government recommended a self- insurance scheme for care homes costs. I would certainly pay £100 a month now to insure the risk (am 60, parents are 80) for them and for me. There's so much inequality in the current system - not only who pays and what is paid, but also where the fees are spent (ie not on staff salaries and benefits). FIL died peacefully at home just before his 90th birthday and was fit until he was dead ... It's the greatest gift he ever gave his family.

The way I see it ,Mum is getting the care she needs and the money from the sale of her house is paying for it

Yup. And the care agency boss I worked most with drove a Jag...
Decent agency but still.

But outrage on here and elsewhere that the adult kids won't get " their inheritance " is, sadly, a sight more common

But the alternative is that you look after them yourself. They are people. They need to be assisted. Assistance with anything, from having your hair cut, to having your house extended, to giving you pills cooking for you and washing you, all needs people to assist. That costs money and nobody would run those businesses if there wasn’t some money to be made. Nobody has an entitlement to an inheritance. I think for some people it seems a waste to see their parents money go on care fees because they feel their parents don’t do much anyway so younger people could get more value out of that money but you have to consider the alternative.

Im not becoming a 24/7 full personal carer for my FIL. £1500 a week is not worth me giving up all my time, wiping his bottom and feeding him I’m afraid. So the money goes on paying someone else to do it. As it should. Yes it’s slightly galling that those who have worked hard and have accumulated assets have to pay whilst those with no money saved (for whatever reason) don’t, but that’s just the premise of the welfare state which is something we value as a country (and as individuals when we are benefitting from our free education, free nhs and relatively affluent and well developed infrastructure), and is not something most of us would really want to lose if we thought it through.

Sure.
But the carers who do the actual work don't get the ultimate benefit of their labour.
The owners do.

Well they get paid.

People don’t run businesses unless there is profit in it. There is noting wrong with that.