Paying for social care (older people)

Andrew: Think ahead would be my advice. The GP had told us on a number of occasions that we would have to start thinking about alternative arrangements for mum; that was even before she had her cancer. We didn’t think ahead enough, we didn’t scout round places, we didn’t view care homes at that stage we wanted to put that off because we didn’t think it would ever get to this. So think ahead I think is a, is a good one; be prepared. 

Marie: My first place would be to start with the local authority, even if you do believe that you may be a self-funder, I think someone coming in to give professional advice about assessment of their needs from an outsider’s point of view. 

Sue: Well it got to a point where I thought actually I’m, I’m doing all this, it’s taking its toll on me but who, why don’t I get that extra care in, you know, like for to come in of an evening and spend evenings for, with my mum, etc but there’s a point you have to reach before you get to that; there’s a point where you do all these things and then, and then there’s points like, well, you know, the money’s sitting there, let’s give her that, that’s hers, you know. But that’s the rub, isn’t it, not everyone will be in that position, not everyone will feel like that.

Simon: I rang for some financial advice and a guy came out from [Town] and he could see that I knew nothing and he gave me lots and lots of information of what to do and then he said, “I’m not going to charge you for this,” he said, “when, when you want to have financial advice then come and see me.” And I remembered that, I thought that that was a really, that was a very, very kind thing for him to do. 

Mark: Yeah, we thought, you know, what if he lives to be a hundred, you know, we will have to, we don’t want to move him. So in fact the, his care home have been extremely helpful in, from the moment he moved in up until; well they’re always helpful actually. But they, when he moved in they explained all the various allowances that he was eligible for and so we did all of that, and they were quite [coughs] they were very helpful in sort of talking us through the pros and cons from their point of view of a what’s it called? It is called a care, a lifetime care plan; it’s an, I think it’s an annuity is it?

Jennifer: Well we pay a monthly fee, which we buy our apartment or house or flat or whatever it is, we buy it, and then we pay a monthly fee, which I think is very reasonable, which covers twenty-four hour porterage twenty-four hour care availability, we have restaurant staff, we have maintenance, full-time maintenance staff, we have a gym, we have a swimming pool, we have a laundry, we have a hairdresser, we have a shop, we have a garden and grounds, and we have to pay for that, of course and that is wonderful.

I’m Sharon Calline I’m the income services manager at City of York council and my job description basically covers the assessment of people who are going to get social care. A financial assessment is something we do for customers who meet this social care and eligibility criteria. It’s a means tested assessment, but essentially if you've got a significant amount of capital sat in bank accounts, building societies, post office, stocks and shares all that gets added together, and if you’re above the higher capital limit, then you are self-funder.

I mean I would always recommend self-funders to get professional advice particularly around planning for the funding of care because it may be that they've got enough assets that they never have to come to a local authority. So, you know that sort of advice can be invaluable, particularly if you've got quite a lot of money, you can make your money work really well for you, and obviously plan earlier, to how you want that money to be to be used at a later date.

Hello, my name’s Lucy Pocock and I’m a GP working in South Gloucestershire. When somebody needs care at home, GPs are often the first port of call for patients and their families. But it might surprise you to know that, actually, many GPs don’t know anything about how the social care system works. We didn’t receive very much training about it and we are not really involved in the process. So I think this is a great resource for patients and their families to find out more about how they access social care; for GPs so that they can signpost their patients to this resource and learn more themselves. And also for GPs in training to really get an understanding of the social care system, how they can support patients and their families to negotiate the social care system.

My name is Nadra Ahmed I'm the Executive Chairman of the National Care Association.

Our role as an organisation is primarily to try and work with government to support our providers.

I think it's important to probably stress that social care is a very complex knit of services and there will be different avenues you can explore. So social services, for example, the local authority should be able to guide you through this this maze of the funding scenarios. I think it's also, there are organisations like SOLLA, for example, who are independent financial advisers who will look at the best possible way of going forward to support you through giving you the financial advice.

What you've got available on this site is you've got real experiences. You’ve got the experiences somebody who's in care, but you've also got people talking about how they felt when they first came to the subject and not knowing what to do. So, I think it is a resource that it's well worth exploring and almost looking down at every facet of it to try and glean as much information as you can, because nothing, nothing at all, is better than an informed decision.

You know, it's not just about one person. Sometimes there's, there are family decisions, and this is a resource that can be shared. And there are snippets in it that you might think ‘that's really useful because when you are having a family conversation that was raised, and we can do that’. And actually, with the clips that are there, you can also show them to the individual who might be receiving care or may be looking at this, because that might just help them to think through what's going on out there and help them and reassure them as well. So, many ways to use the resource.