£600k for 10 years - is that reasonable planning for a home?

Privately funding starts at £1,000 a week here up to a whopping £3,000 a week.

The Age UK website is very good and very informative. Each council is different. My mum is in a nursing home and every year she is assessed for her nursing needs. The payment for this side of things is paid directly to the home - not by mum. She just pays for her room, food etc. Her yearly charge is around £72k atm.

I think that many people, quite rightly, have a negative view of care homes because of what has happened since the government allowed the care sector to be used as a money-making vehicle.

Many care homes providers are now loaded with massive leveraged debt from a succession of complex deals, the sole aim of which was to make money for private equity firms. These firms don’t have any interest in the sector other than as an easy and quick cash cow.

My experience has been that care homes are very, very reluctant to give a breakdown of their costs because it would mean disclosingjust how much of what is being paid for care by councils and self-funders is going to service these enormous debts. I suspect that local managers of homes which are part of a chain have little idea about the overall finances of the group. They have a menu of prices based on the degree of care needed but how are these prices quantified?

It’s a matter of public record that homes which have these high debts had double the number of Covid deaths compared to those that didn’t because the former are the homes that continually cut costs at the point of delivery to pay these debts.

Around 70p of every pound we pay in council tax is funding adult social care. Around 50% of people are self-funding so that 70p is only paying for half of the people who need care. This is one of the reasons the care cap was postponed.

Instead of being complacent about this, as we enter the run up to the next general election, we should be asking the opposition parties what they intend to do about this. We need a complete restructuring of adult social care funding to take it out of the control of the money-market and people whose only motive is greed.

I have no objection to paying taxes to fund the care of vulnerable people. I accept that if my time comes, I will fund my own care, care being the operative word. I will not fund the lavish lifestyles of corporate raiders.

While we are stuck with this current system, the key is to find a home which is still managed and controlled by the owner(s), preferably family-run by people with hands-on knowledge of caring.

There are too many places that, while they might not be loaded with leveraged debt, are owned by very greedy people.

Runwood Homes have been in the news several times over the last couple of years, criticised for paying its directors enormous amounts (57 million over five years) while CQC reports distressingly poor standards of care. Residents left for hours in soiled incontinence pads, roughly-handled and restrained while directors buy themselves second homes in Knightsbridge. In 2020, Runwood Homes claimed two million in Covid grants (including furlough payments - go figure). Coincidentally, its principle director and shareholder paid himself an extra two million in dividends. Funny that. Except it isn’t because we are all funding this greed.

We're buggered. We've got zero savings.

Oh to only need £60k a year. It costs my Mum £104k pa and that will increase every year at least in line with inflation. I have had to sell her family home to pay the fees. There are socially funded places but the fees for those people are much less so my Mum is subsidising their places. It is a disgusting state of affairs especially as she couldn't possibly live at home. She is immobile, needs somebody there when she feeds due to her aspiration problems, is doubly incontinent and suffers from dementia so has behavioural problems but she is not eligible for any monetary help at all except for Funded Nursing Care which is paid on top of the £2000 a week we have to find.

My father (aged 89) has recently gone into dementia care home, it’s approximately 2k per week. He is currently funding it from savings but they will run out in June. His house is also currently up for sale and when it sells (🤞) it will fund him for a few more years. After that if he is still there we hope the LA will fund the majority of the cost but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

fancythat

M0nica

The average length of stay in a care home is two years so, while there will be the occasional person who is there much longer, they will be the exception not the rule.

Doesnt that mean that half the people will be there longer, and half less?

Nope. It doesn’t.

I worked for Runwood homes for a while.
Again, there are good and bad, even within that company, but the one I worked in was very good.

An aunt was self funding until she passed away late year..she was in a residential mid range home ( didn't qualify for nursing care which is mainly paid by govt /social care)
Aunt paid a basic £5000 per month plus * extras* ..I.e.everything from hair ,chiropody, newspapers etc
All the extra added £500 per month usually..even though she never read the newspapers. And did not need hair dresser weekly .
So I would estimate on today's rates about £65,000 to 70,000 p.a.
And family had to prove from her bank accounts that she had at least 2 years funds available before they would accept her!!

I did write an earlier post where l gave my husband's nursing home fees as 1,300 per week. That was 2 years ago. He is no longer there but I've looked up the present day fees. Per week it is now 1,500 to 1,650..... depending on the room. So a
Whopping increase of up to 2,000 /2,500...per week in 2 years. Obviously because of increased food and energy costs. And if course this will likely rise every year.

My freind is moving into a care home average fee is 1600.00 per week for self pay. It is a newish council owned care home and she requires nursing care.

My late husband was in a Care Home. He needed nursing and it cost £6000 a month.

I spent two weeks respite there at a cost of £1000 a week.

When MIL was in a Care Home we could never find out where the £16 (then) pocket money came from ,us, or them.

It seems impossible to get a break-down of what one is paying for : room ; food ; care etc.

One of the homes I looked at for my mum showed me two sorts of rooms. One could be paid for by the local authority, the other cost too much and was only available to those paying themselves. The LA room was slightly smaller, and the private one was on the ground floor and had a door which opened onto a small decking area. I did wonder if the staff treated people differently.
Thank goodness for the pneumonia which took my mum before she could leave hospital.

MissAdventure

I worked for Runwood homes for a while.
Again, there are good and bad, even within that company, but the one I worked in was very good.

That’s so good to hear, here in Essex my experience of this group has been excellent to date for both my MiL and my late Aunt

Staff won't be privy to peoples funding arrangements, as far as I know.
I never have been, and I have worked "on the floor" and in more office based care roles.

Good practice, respect, and treating people as individuals is across the board.

The £16 pocket money was probably what she was allowed to keep from her pension Eirlys. When I worked for a local authority part of my work was obtaining guardianship for people in the council’s homes and selling their houses to pay for fees. All money had to be strictly accounted for of course, and I remember this sort of sum was given to them out of their pension, which was paid to the council. That was early 80s.

Yes, that's what I can remember, the £16 pocket money, and that too was in the 80s.

Cossy

MissAdventure

I worked for Runwood homes for a while.
Again, there are good and bad, even within that company, but the one I worked in was very good.

That’s so good to hear, here in Essex my experience of this group has been excellent to date for both my MiL and my late Aunt

I'm in Essex.

My Aunt is currently in a care home and we are paying £1600 a week (£83200 a year) . She doesn't need one to one care and is fed well . My real gripe is that we have to supply all toiletries and incontinence pads . Its scary to think about

Mauriherb

My Aunt is currently in a care home and we are paying £1600 a week (£83200 a year) . She doesn't need one to one care and is fed well . My real gripe is that we have to supply all toiletries and incontinence pads . Its scary to think about

Yes, along with chiropody (she's diabetic so only a qualified person can cut her toenails), paying for Opticians to visit as she is immobile and various other incidentals. It is a constant worry.

My mother was in an Abbeyfield care home, purpose built for dementia, for 8 years.
It was very good and by no means the most expensive - and we looked at a lot, for both her and FiL.

I swear that in some of them all you could hear was the cash registers ringing, metaphorically speaking. We looked at one such - very smart decor downstairs (to impress the relatives who were choosing) and they were perfectly willing to take my mother, but the room they were offering was down a maze of narrow corridors (it was a converted hotel) - a small poky room with the original avocado washbasin, and no ensuite.

It would have been totally unsuitable for her.
The home was owned, we were told, by a consortium of doctors.

I would just add, re the Abbeyfield dementia home I mentioned, I would guess that around half the residents were self funded. But they all had exactly the same type of ensuite room, and all received the same level of care.

During my mother’s 8 years there, I saw very little turnaround of staff, surely always a good sign.

My DSis with advanced dementia (unable to care for herself safely), has just moved into a care home, over £1600 a week.....

The annual return on £600,000 would be variable according to interest rates at the time, plus the person's income would be taken into account.

So really, it is a case of 'how long is a piece of string'?

Plus, of course, the rising costs of care.
The age of the person now
Inflation
Etc.

It really is impossible to say.