Is it illegal?

Franbern is Scotland there would be no claim on the house if the spouse was living in it . Their assets like cash shares etc. are devided equally and I think if the husband had the only work pension half of it is used for his care. You just have to sit tight and not downsize or go into sheltered accommodation in which case DH half of the house could be used for his care.

Do not think you would be forced to sell the marital home. However, when it was eventually sold, either by you, or after your own death, upto half can be taken to repay the costs

The SW I dealt with when my mum was in hospital and we were looking for a way of getting her out was great. He provided me with a list of care homes that could provide the nursing care mum needed. He talked to both of us but realised mum was not always 100% able to give her views so he often went back to talk to her again. When I said I didn't like any of the homes he set things in motion to get her back to her own flat with 24 hour care. Unfortunately she died before the arrangements were finalised. I never felt any pressure to make a decision and her views were always listened to - she didn't have dementia but she was 95 and a number of factors had affected her memory.

Monica. Were it not for the as you put it 'tender mercies' of the SS, for the uninitiated ie Social Services , I could not have coped with and given my DH the care every human who cannot look after themselves should be entitled to in their last years.

I did not have to pay full fees for respite care for 6 weeks per year as this is what I had been assessed as needing by SS, had I wanted more I would have paid in full.
I paid £60 per day for daycare but could only get H in for one day a week.
I only had 4 weeks of the six before my H went in permanently.
I am still no further on with clarification in the £100 top up charges.

N & G I was not referring to the financial aspects but rather to the hands on caring responsibilities - feeding, dressing, toileting, cooking, cleaning, shopping, bill paying etc. Even if the person needing care is in a care home or has daily carers in their own home there is still all the arrangements, appointments, paying for help, liaising with SS and other agencies, gardening, property maintenance, chiropody, dentist, optician, etc.etc.

I was trapped in my late 40's early 50's while working full time + part-time (to put 2DDs through UNI) into taking on the caring responsibility for DM MIL, FIL, Maiden Aunts x 2. All 5 of them were in hospital simultaneously at one point. Each one complaining of a lack of enough visiting and only myself and DH (an only child) to deal with all the problems. This continued for some 5 years, with us unable to take a holiday or visit our DDs who were away at Uni.

This was back in the 1990's and there was, at least no problem with money as Mum &MIL had home helps, FIL and both Aunts were eventually in long term care/nursing homes - all funded by the local Council or NHSS. Changed days now as DH's Day Care and Respite breaks have to be paid for in full. less 20% for Personal Care paid by the Scottish Government.

Your children cannot be made to support you, but SS will not tell them that, they will do everything they can to batten down on them and emotionally blackmail them into doing so.

If I sound bitter i am. I have, a number of times, taken on responsibility for the care of older relatives, who had no children or others able to help and my experiences at the mercy of the hospitals they were in and the SS meant to be providing or helping with care has been dreadful.

I became very familiar with official grievance procedures. I have also helped and advised others in similar situations.

So if you had no partner /husband to take responsibility for you , your children can be made to financially support you Granny23 ?

I would not have thought that could be enforced ?

Your right PECS it would be down to poor planning but when I think back to my 20's there was no inference that we would be in the situation we find ourselves in in the UK for social care. I totally agree it will be a very different picture for our children . Especially if the goal posts for retirement etc keep moving further off into the distance.

BusterTank , just to be clear , this was just me asking a hypothetical question not a situation I find myself in and hope to god I never do.

AFAIK, nobody can be forced to pay for at-home care for another adult. The money should come out of their own funds.

A problem often arises when someone who badly needs care either insists that they don't need it, and won't allow carers in, or else refuses to pay for it. (We have family experience of this.). If nobody has Power of Attorney for finances, this can be a major headache.

After (far too much) family experience of dementia, I've heard of many cases where a hospital wants to discharge the person to their home, very often on their own, without adequate care being in place, and when relatives, for whatever reason, are unable to undertake their care. (It never happened in our situations, thank goodness.)

Frequently this only ends in a 'failed discharge', I.e. the person ending up in hospital again, after just a few days, because e.g. they've had yet another bad fall.

In such cases I've seen it advised to make sure the person has no house keys on them, so they can't be taken home regardless, and to ensure that nobody will be there to let them in. Might sound drastic, but it may sometimes be the only way.

Granny23, not necessarily. I took on responsibility for 4 relatives because they were childless and had no other relations to take responsibility. If I had walked away from them, there would have been entirely dependent on Social Services to arrange their care and organise their finances for them.

To my children they were very distant relatives they had rarely ever met and with all of us living scattered around the country hundreds of miles apart, responsibility ended with me.

I hope no one is basing their future plans on the contradictory anecdotal 'information' on this thread. Factual Information is available on the Scottish and for England/Wales on the Westminster, government web sites or from Alzheimer's and other relevant Charity Websites.

I doubt if there are many full time carers who have not toyed with the idea of emptying the bank accounts and disappearing to warmer climes. The major drawback to this plan is that the burden of undertaking, arranging, paying for care would then fall on other family members - in my case that would be my two DDs, who are both in their late 40s, at the peak of their careers and with pre teen children and mortgages. There is no way I would subject them, their spouses and their children to this scenario.

In my experience as a nurse , adult social social services would get involved . Depending on your finance situation , they might offer home care which you would top up with your own money . If this person goes into a home there pension will go towards the cost , in some cases of they have there own home they can be forced to sell it , to cover costs . This information is if the person is already in hospital . If you take the person to accident and emergency and leave them you can be done for aboundenment . Good luck .

nanaandgrampy the trouble is we spend so much time fire fighting because of poor planning we are still not planning for the future.
Our children need to be thinking what / how they will manage their old age at a time when they are struggling to manage what's happening today!

I agree PECS , it seems that the system hits you hardest when you are at your lowest and that surely isn't right?

There are big sustainability issues with improved health and medical care. Expectations are higher. We live longer, survive illnesses we would not have previously lived through, resulting in more more, older people needing supported living. Many, many good things as a result of improved medicine but the negative is how & where are older but incapacitated people to live?
I think that maybe those that do have assets should pay towards care costs..but we need clearer guidelines on care vs medical & on when payment is made & how to protect other members of the family from financial & emotional distress.

What you can be sure of is that if SS or the hospital know there is someone, especially a relative, who cares about the elderly person and who can be bullied or emotionally blackmailed into taking that person off their hands, my goodness they will do it.

At various times I have been the person responsible for the welfare of 5 different relatives and in three cases in all I was subject to everything either the hospital or SS could think of, nothing was too low or too threatening that they did not use, it to try to make me agree to hospital discharges where no satisfactory further care plans were in place

muffinmoo...thanks for saying that. This is something I have wondered about myself.

I was carer to a family member. My occupation was nothing to do with caring for people. I had no nursing skills or any other skills like physiotherapy or occupational therapy. The person I cared for was twice my size. I am small and was skinny.
I dont know the amount of times I was forced in to caring as best I could. There were many failed discharges. Months were spent in hospital. This was clearly one very ill person who needed better care than a non nurse could provide.
There was a discharge where I tried to demand a stair lift to be installed at home. The discharge was forced through without a stair lift. I spent 6 months manhandling a 15 stone person up and down stairs.
Death came after more failed discharges and horrible experiences with bullying NHS and SS staff.
I was then diagnosed with multiple illnesses and conditions. I really do wonder if I had not been bullied would I have been ill now. Or maybe if I had more help would my health have survived. I dont know but it is questionable.

I don't know how it is in the UK, but here what would typically happen is that the patient would be assessed for what we call Alternate Level of Care, or ALC. They would stay in the hospital for the moment but would be charged the regular monthly rate for long-term care (this is set by the government and is the same rate they would pay to live in a nursing home). They would have vital signs taken once a week and an assessment once a month. This is rather common especially on geriatric units.

A friend of mine, much older, is in hospital at present following a fall at home. She has dementia and it is another friend who is her next of kin and has POA for money but not for health. The friend lives 30 miles away and does not want to care for the hospitalised friend. We were discussing this evening if she would have the responsibility of looking for a care home for the other or whether SS would take over. We have all been friends, mainly from work for 40 + years but I have known the non hospitalised friend since we were 11 years of age.

We all know how much you struggled to care for your DH Ann , no one could have done more . It’s heart breaking that with everything else you have to deal with now having financial challenges is adding insult to injury.

It’s such a flawed system, it’s why we were discussing it because it’s so hard to get your head round.

Of course you will all realise my post above was very tongue in cheek,
I could no more leave my H to the mercies of the system than any of you would.
I want the best for him regardless of the cost.
It just seems unfair that dementia is treated differently to other illness.
My H now has been diagnosed with bladder cancer, when his condition deteriorates I may get nursing costs paid as he is considered too frail to operate on.

Providing you are not married to them, you can just walk away and leave them to the tender mercies of SS. And that happens rather more often than we would want to believe.

If you are married to the person concerned, then SS can come after you for half the marital assets.

My H has been in care now for 8 weeks .
His dementia, stroke and poor mobility meant that sfter a year, many with demantia, at my age, 81 , I could no longer care for him.
I chose his care home, a very nice but no frills place, and yesterday I received the SS assessment of my contribution to the fees.
On top of those, which are not inconsidersble, I have been asked for £100 per week for top up fees.
This will leave me considerably tight for money.
I have contested this and wait for a judgement.
Anyone who feels like doing a runner has my sympathy, they wont get away with it but full marks for trying to evade a very unfair system.

It’s not something my mothers generation seemed to have to deal with , and I wonder what my grandchildren’s generation will have to deal with .