Elderly Care Funding Causing Misery
The “magic” number in England for individuals needing care is £21,000. If you have assets of more than £21,000 in your name then you will be liable to pay for your care. Many people facing the cost of long-term care have been forced to sell their own homes or transfer property or assets to their children or other relatives.
A BBC Five Live report by Liz Penney found that the system of continuing care funding is a nightmare of bureaucracy and bad advice. The rules about funding are interpreted differently across the country and there is no consistency of service leading to a postcode lottery fiasco.
Liz and her sister had to look after both their parents at a time when both needed care at the same time. They used £50,000 of their savings to fund their father’s care. When the savings were all spent they discovered that as the actual savings were in their mother’s name the care they had purchased for their father could have been 100% funded from the public purse.
However they could not get any of the savings returned and the stress and strain of the situation had a massive impact on their family life, with over two and half years of trying to make sure that their parents were being looked after as their priority even at the expense of virtually ignoring their own children in the process.
Owain Wright,
head of care funding at Saga, encounters similar stories all the time. "I think it is generally held that the system at the moment is not working for the majority of people," he said. "Mainly because, if everyone who should get it did, then the system would crumble. Also the criteria are not great so we're finding Primary Care Trusts finding ways to deny people continuing care when perhaps a reasonable person might say they're eligible."
The Five Live report says that the new simplified rules that come into effect from October 2007 should provide a national standard for who pays for the bill for looking after millions of older people. The objective is to set some consistency for the decisions made about who is eligible to receive continuing care funding.
The Care Service Minister Ivan Lewis says the new system will be "fairer and more convenient for both patients and professionals".
The government expects the new system will cost up to an extra £220 million in the first year of operation. But the overall cost of looking after all the elderly in the UK runs to £42 billion a year according to the charity CareAware.
While acknowledging that the changes will go some way to ease the funding gap, critics say there are still millions of families facing financial meltdown to ensure that their loved ones receive the right care. Those with the most serious conditions are entitled to fully funded continuous care. But it can be very difficult to prove.
A BBC Five Live report by Liz Penney found that the system of continuing care funding is a nightmare of bureaucracy and bad advice. The rules about funding are interpreted differently across the country and there is no consistency of service leading to a postcode lottery fiasco.
Liz and her sister had to look after both their parents at a time when both needed care at the same time. They used £50,000 of their savings to fund their father’s care. When the savings were all spent they discovered that as the actual savings were in their mother’s name the care they had purchased for their father could have been 100% funded from the public purse.
However they could not get any of the savings returned and the stress and strain of the situation had a massive impact on their family life, with over two and half years of trying to make sure that their parents were being looked after as their priority even at the expense of virtually ignoring their own children in the process.
Owain Wright,
The Five Live report says that the new simplified rules that come into effect from October 2007 should provide a national standard for who pays for the bill for looking after millions of older people. The objective is to set some consistency for the decisions made about who is eligible to receive continuing care funding.
The Care Service Minister Ivan Lewis says the new system will be "fairer and more convenient for both patients and professionals".
The government expects the new system will cost up to an extra £220 million in the first year of operation. But the overall cost of looking after all the elderly in the UK runs to £42 billion a year according to the charity CareAware.
While acknowledging that the changes will go some way to ease the funding gap, critics say there are still millions of families facing financial meltdown to ensure that their loved ones receive the right care. Those with the most serious conditions are entitled to fully funded continuous care. But it can be very difficult to prove.
