In essence, individuals assessed as needing care in a care home have to pay for it themselves if they have assets, including the value of their home, of more than £23,250. If they need care in their own home, the same capital threshold still applies but the value of their home is excluded. If they have assets below £23,250 but
above £14,250, they pay a sliding scale.

One of many local care homes
CREDIT: Dave Young

Any income above £24.90 per week, including for instance from a state pension, will also be taken.

There is currently no cap on liability. So with the average care home fees running in the region of £35,000 per year, a three-year stay will cost over £100,000.

Under the system changes proposed by Health and Social Care minister Sajid Javid last week, applicable from October 2023, no-one should pay more than a cumulative lifetime sum of £86,000 for care provision. In addition, contributions would not be required from assets valued below £20,000 and discounts on a sliding scale would apply up to £100,000.

But it swiftly emerged that the £86,000 cap was not intended to cover ordinary living costs – food, energy bills and accommodation; only the specific care elements, for instance help in coping with daily tasks such as washing, dressing and eating. In the majority of care homes, the costs of the former might well exceed the latter – though it’s difficult to know this, since hitherto care homes have had no reason to itemise them separately. 

Read our opinion pieces here Asset-stripped: my father’s experience and An Unfair Levy

An Unfair Levy

By Rosie Brocklehurst

Ostensibly, the Government has striven to fulfil a manifesto commitment to sort Social Care by breaking a manifesto commitment on no rises in taxation. Not a blush appears on Boris Johnson’s cheek. Yet none of what has been announced makes sense. 

Many people have not yet fully understood how unfair and useless the Government’s move is. There is no Social Care ‘plan’ as such.  But the Health and Social Care Tax levy plan will protect the already asset-wealthy – those who have benefited from other tax reductions on capital gains. It will fall heavily on low earners and the young. Ironically it is not even going to work to fix Social Care anyway. 

It may raise just about enough to make a start on reducing backlogs in the NHS but not by much.

Residential Social Care is means-tested, and those without assets but with income such as a state pension will have all that pension taken away for their care. Many people with houses in the middle range, may have to sell anyway after means testing. Social Care will continue to be an area plummeting into crisis and neglect, with undervalued staff shrinking in numbers daily. Those of working age who need Social Care for daily support and respite, or those elderly who need home support, delivered in each case by underpaid zero hours contract workers, are unlikely to see any improvement either.  How can there be improvement on £36bn over three years which will be devoured by the NHS just to make a small dent in waiting lists? Social Care needs twice that just for itself and to make the sector much more attractive to staff.   

To sum up: Social Care in the UK is already a disgrace, morphing into a disaster, with no effective improvement plan and, even now after this deeply unfair levy announcement, faces a gloomy future with nowhere near enough money. 

This Government is so horrendously incompetent.

Asset-stripped: my father’s experience

By Peter Jenner 

My father left school at 14. He has worked all his life, he was encouraged to buy his council house, he was encouraged to save, he has paid all his taxes. But he currently has many health issues and is no longer able to look after himself. He has needed nursing care since 2017. 

A financial assessment was carried out at that point, and because he owned his council house he was required to pay for the care. I had to sell the house in order to raise the necessary funds.

Nursing home fees have amounted to around £250,000 over four years, paid entirely from the sale proceeds. The remainder of this sum has now dwindled to just over £23,500. 

Financial review

I had been under the impression that once it fell below this threshold, the State would assume full funding responsibility. But no, after a review by Adult Social Care Financial Services, my father was asked to contribute more than his entire weekly income, consisting of his state pension and a very small annuity. I challenged this, and was given the following calculation:

For every £250 of capital over £14,250 there is a £1 tariff charge. £23,250 – £14,250 at £1 per £250 = £36.

Thus my father’s savings are being further eroded to fund his care by the tune of £36 per week. Only once my father’s assets fall below £14,250 will no further contribution be required from him.

Government proposals

I do not see the proposals put forward by the government as altering the situation one bit. People needing care are still going to have to sell their homes. The majority of people like my father are asset rich (a house) and cash poor.

I am unable to do a comparative costing as the government figure is to pay nursing expenses only and excludes accommodation expenses. Every invoice I have for my father (over three nursing homes and four years) shows a flat weekly fee which includes both, but I have no idea how much of the weekly fee refers to each. You can bet your bottom dollar that, when the two are split out, the accommodation fee will be the greater of the two, thereby reducing the government share.

What the government has forgotten is that the next generation (my son’s age group) may not be able to afford a house in their lifetime and will most probably live in rented accommodation. This generation will be both asset and cash poor. So the bill for social care will be sky high.

Levy here to stay

I also think that what is being proposed will not deliver. There is no actual plan with targets, and most of this cash will disappear into the NHS. Just look at today’s headline in the Daily Telegraph: NHS Hires Army of £200,000 Bureaucrats. Apparently 42 of them are being proposed. This expense will be on everyone’s payslips as an NHS social care levy. So we know it’s here to stay. Can you honestly believe any government reducing this payment in years to come? They would be slated as taking money out of the NHS.

I wrote to Amber Rudd a few years ago and told her that I thought the best system would be for everyone (working and non-working adults alike) to pay something like 50p a week (£2 per month) into a ring-fenced fund from the day they start working as an adult until the day they retire, this money only to be used for adult social care use. Not everyone will need care in their old age; none of us knows what the future holds; but, over time, and with the money invested wisely, there should be enough in the pot to pay for those in need. I wasn’t surprised when my idea was totally ignored.

So we carry on with the roulette wheel of life. All I know is that, if I am unlucky enough to need nursing care in my old age, I will be well and truly asset-stripped by the government. So what I should do now is spend it. Hang on, I cannot even do that, because if I do and then find within the next seven years that I need care, I will be accused of avoiding liability and will still have to pay. 

It does make you question whether it was worth trying to better yourself during your lifetime.