Care Homes & Money

[Chatterboxy]

Reading some of the posts about care home costs & family top ups has got me thinking 🤔
What is going to happen in the future for the people who have rented their whole lives who have never managed to get on the housing ladder, more these days than a few years ago or for those on benefits & no savings, and no property to sell to afford care home fees, the cost of social care is going to to be massive!

There are many things in life that can be considered ‘unfair’. It could be that the person whose care fees are funded by the LA was born into poverty, ended up in care as a child, had undiagnosed autism, was failed at school, unable to get a full time job paying above minimum wage, developed chronic health conditions in their 40s, was never able to buy their own house because of their inability to earn enough… the list of reasons as to why someone at the age of 80 doesn't have the ability to self fund their care is endless. Most of those reasons are beyond their control.
On the other hand, someone whose managed to buy their own house in the 1960’s for £10k, like my mum, that has saved maybe £100k by the time they retired, whose house is now worth £400k purely because of inflation should use some of their savings and equity to continue to pay for their care needs in later life. The alternative is everyone else funds everyone’s care whilst the person sitting on £500k leaves it all to their children who have not done anything to earn that money. They’ve benefitted from acquired wealth instead. The rich get richer.

We plan to move in a couple of years, not downsize but look for a house with a better configuration for us ageing. Not a bungalow though. We want a downstairs bathroom in addition to an upstairs one and room for a stairlift to be fitted easily.

@1apenny2apenny With support from my friend her Mother avoided being in a home for about 3 years, nearly broke my newly retired friend. She is now in a home for dementia patients, it’s rinsing through her savings as it’s close to 2k per week. She has had various illness and infections, I do not understand why she couldn’t have just had meds for pain and been allowed to die,

There was another thread on this forum a couple of weeks ago @Cheese55 where posters were describing the life-prolonging treatments given to very frail and elderly people, even when they themselves had expressed the wish to die, or expressed that wish earlier in life. I don't think a death from pneumonia, where the patient can be sedated and given pain relief, is really any 'worse' than dying from dementia itself.