Paying For Care How can you plan to pay for your care?
16/09/2009
If you are likely to have to contribute towards your care home fees, how can you be sure that your savings will last for as long as they are needed? Or that your family can benefit from an inheritance?
More Stories
Six essential steps for self-funding care as interest rates plummet
With more and more older people struggling to meet increasing care home fees as interest rates hit an all time low and the property market stagnates, advice organisation FirstStop has issued a factsheet ‘Self-funding Care Home Fees’ offering really helpful advice.
Join our live webchat to get the lowdown on long term care funding
One in four of the UK population will require some form of long-term care in their lifetime but funding it can be an emotive, complex and expensive prospect. To find out more about the solutions that exist and the financial assistance available, join our live webchat at 1pm on Monday 8 December with Alex Edmans. She'll be there to answer questions - including yours!
Many older care home residents "being stung" for fees
New research by the charity Age Concern has shown that vulnerable older people needing residential care and their families are being unfairly stung for fees costing thousands of pounds per year. Their findings also reveal that local authorities in most regions are not paying the market rate for care home places - thereby forcing older people and their families to plug a funding gap totalling some half a billion per year.
Care fees: who should be paying the bills?
Every year tens of thousands of people are forced to sell their homes to pay for care fees. But should they really be paying at all when their needs are primarily medical? In the first of a series of articles for Mature Times, John Harrison - a specialist lawyer with 23 years’ experience in the field of asset protection - shares his knowledge of “the system”. We’ll hear about the ploys that some less than scrupulous local authorities use to persuade people to part with their money. The names have been changed, but the cases are real.
Call to end paying for Alzheimer's care
National charity has given its support to the Alzheimer’s Society’s new report "The Dementia Tax - Charging for people with dementia for inadequate care: the evidence for change".
NHS faces £180 million compensation bill over care bills mess
In a situation described by Help The Aged as "a terrible mess", the NHS is being forced to pay a £180m compensation bill by the Health Ombudsman after incorrectly charging people for long-term nursing care and social care between 1996-2004.
"Care system in crisis" as nation fails to save for later life
Two thirds of people in the UK say they have no plans to put any money aside to fund their social care in older age. Moreover, when faced with a choice of local authority support, paying for a private service or turning to family and friends, two thirds of people are likely to seek help from family or friends, according to major new research launched today by three leading national charities.
Self-funding residents in care homes being penalized
Older people forced to sell their homes to pay for care are being penalised by rising care costs and having to use the proceeds from their former homes to prop-up a failing care system.
Facing care home fees? Take control of the situation
A highly useful book about care home fees has been published by John Harrison, a specialist private client lawyer with 23 years experience in private practice. Called "The Layman's Guide to the avoidance of care charges", it is already into a second edition, and lists more than 50 legal, ethical and practical arguments and strategies that can be used to challenge a claim by a local council that they are entitled to take an individual’s assets (both capital and or income) to fund care home fees.
John tells Mature Times why he wrote the book.
Join us today for a webchat on Long Term Care funding.
One in four of the UK population will require some form of long-term care in their lifetime - and funding it can be an emotive, complex and expensive prospect. That's way it's important to consider all the funding options available to ensure that assets are suitably protected - however with so many issues to make sense of there is no one size fits all solution.
Join us for a webchat aimed at those with parents approaching their later years and also those who want to make sure they and their family don’t have to foot a large bill when they need extra care provision.
New guide to direct payments for those needing care
The national charity Counsel and Care has published two step-by-step guides to using direct payments for older people, their families, carers and involved professionals.
New website will help raise standards of care homes
A new website has been launched, designed especially to help care home professionals - from assistants to inspectors - to improve standards of care.
Are you claiming YOUR full assistance allowances?
Did you know there is an Attendance Allowance available for people aged 65 or over who are ill or disabled and need help with personal care or supervision? If you, or the person you care for, are ill or have a disability, then you may well be entitled to assistance. Age Concern is urging everyone to claim what is rightfully theirs.
Paying for care: new capital limits now apply
If you, or someone you know is about to embark on long-term care, then you should know about the recent increases in capital limits.
