Could you survive on state pension with ill health?

I spent over £250 on taxis in one week when I was first ill.

I am in my mid-eighties, Due to not paying my NI stamps for several years as I was a foster parent (expenses only, not paid), and a carer for my husband, I do not receive the full state pension, but have top up with PC.

As I have various medical conditions I also have higher level AA.

I own my flat, do not have a car, do not smoke, do not go on expensive holidays, have no pets and have no debts - so I live pretty well on pension +PC + AA. My flat is kept warm and cosy, I get Sainsbury's deliveries for my food, mainly cook from scratch and am able to eat a good, healthy diet. Local u3a and other groups provide me with social activities - which I can get to with my mobility scooter. Thanks to this I live a good, totally independent life.

gentleshores

I’m just thinking ahead to if anything happened to OH although I sometimes think I’d be happier on my own as things aren’t great.

I was quite surprised to find that my pension was increased after my husband died. Having the mortgage paid off made a big difference to my outgoings, and if my son hadn't moved in with me, I would get a 25% reduction on my council tax.

Franbern, I don’t know if it’s still the case that foster carers are left without pension NI contributions. It always seemed so unfair

As others have said, ill health can be expensive. Heating the home, buying special food and all those medical appointments meaning taxis or long car journeys. We didn’t get round to claiming attendance allowance. We agreed we should but my husband died within days of that decision

Managing on a basic state pension is not easy. I’m fortunate in having work pension which is how we managed to do three days a week at the cancer hospital twenty miles away

RosieandherMaw

crazyH

I don’t know what you mean by ‘medical expenses’ - we have an enviable National Health Service. I’ll be interested to know.

Chronic or poor health can get expensive.
Needing the heating on if you are stuck at home with poor mobility, needing help in the house, getting to hospital appointments which may be miles away, perhaps you are not able to stand or cook, so good quality ready meals, all spring to mind.
We often had 4 or more clinic appointments a month in London, a taxi to the station (or car parking) and then the train for both of us plus a taxi at the other end regularly came in at £60-70.
When DH was in hospital it often cost me half that or more to visit him.
Poor health doesn’t come cheap.

People living only on the state pension (with very low savings) would almost certainly qualify for an HC2 certificate, which pays for the necessary costs of travel to receive NHS treatment.

CariadAgain

It depends a lot on whether money is still going out for mortgage - or rent. Also things like how much the home costs to heat (size/types of fuel used/etc). Add in if one lives in an area with poor public transport = money needed for a car or taxi fares at intervals. Very much a case of "How long is a piece of string?"

Then there's how much of one's own money is having to go out on what I call "subsidising the NHS" - as that's what it boils down to basically. Many people have to have a private dentist, rather than an NHS one and they don't come cheap I do know.

Then there's the "luck of the draw" aspect - as in according to how life goes, what illness one has and how good (or otherwise) any medical people one sees are. eg it should have cost £250 (bad enough) to see a podiatrist for an ingrown toenail. But I'm calling her the "butcher of 'insert name of town' - as she f&cked up and that's cost me another £30, then £40, then £40 and hopefully the last bit of £60 to pay other people to deal with her bodging on my toenail (and that doesnt include transport costs). Some people would put up/or financially have no alternative but to put up with mucked-up looking toenail and pain she has caused - and I'm spending that extra because I won't do so.

Glasses? Yep...that costs - even if one gets the cheapest possible for reading and computer work and only buys the ones you actually like etc for everyday/everyone will see you type purposes.

A lot is down to how lucky/unlucky one is healthwise, how far from any practitioners one might need and whether one is prepared to put up with less than optimum achievable health/looks.

Now - where's that piece of string?

An HS2 certificate pays for the full value of the cost of glasses and contact lenses. There's a limited choice of frames, but I've been receiving two new pairs (one for reading and another for long distance) a year at no cost.

A friend of mine is taking her H for radiotherapy for 10 sessions
It costs £20 per journey,£40 a day
They could ask for transport but you could be all day waiting around
They could come 2 hours before the appointment and have to wait for hours to be taken home
They can afford it but many , many wouldn’t be able to.
He has a decent private pension

AreWeThereYet

Depends on whether you mean 'survive' or 'live as I expect to'. Either way there are so many variables there is no way to quantify it.

There are lots of quite debilitating ailments that won't require many visits to hospital but may need extra care at home or transport or special diet plus the cost of medication or prescriptions. Some of which you may get help for and some you won't.

As RosieandherMaw said there can be loads of extra expenses on top of getting actual medical intervention in hospital. An awful lot depends on your environment, your general health, amount of support from family/friends, how close you are to GP and/or hospital, what your actual medical needs are.

Prescriptions are free for anybody of pension age.

Usedtobeblonde

A friend of mine is taking her H for radiotherapy for 10 sessions
It costs £20 per journey,£40 a day
They could ask for transport but you could be all day waiting around
They could come 2 hours before the appointment and have to wait for hours to be taken home
They can afford it but many , many wouldn’t be able to.
He has a decent private pension

But if the patient only received the state pension, he could receive a refund of travel costs. He wouldn't have to use "hospital transport".

I think the support structure is so complex it is almost impossible for anyone to know what they might be entitled to and claim it.

Where I live the cost of a taxi for a round trip to the main hospital is £100. Not only that parking at the hospital is extrememly limited, so the 'cost' to us is that DH cannot physically go to a hospital appointment on his own, even though he is otherwise capable of it. I have to drive him there, drop him off, drive over half a mile to the nearest public carpark and sit in the car until he rings me to say he is ready to be collected.

Still the car park is close to Waitrose, so I can go in and get my free coffee and use the loo if needed. But it is a waste of my time and can get cold in winter.

I use a community car scheme, where they charge £15 for a hospital appointment, and will wait up to 2 hours for you.

Would you believe, they have trouble finding people to use the service?

It's not really listed or widely known about - I only heard of it because of being at work, originally.

It was strictly for people who are registered disabled, with proof, but they have relaxed the rules in order to keep the service running.

Iam64 re foster parents. As I understand it these days, these are all actually 'employed' and receive a reasonable salary for fostering, which also includes their NI payment etc.

Back when hubbie and myself were local authority foster parents we only received a very small amount of money, which was counted as 'expenses'. There was absolutely no salary side to this, and often that expenses payment would not cover the extra costs involved in having that foster child.

Mind you there was no training, and little support. Hubbie and myself became CHair and Secretary of our Fostering group - and I would say that ten years ago, when I was thinking of getting a cat, the check on my home and garden was far more comprehensive than was the check made back in 1972 for us to become foster parents. Obviously, back then, no-one did this for the money - we always had babies and toddlers, so I was the at home 'Homemaker'. Back then in my early thirties never gave a single thought to the effect on my state pension.
Then hubbies MS worsened and I continued on at home looking after family and him. That was, at the same time, some of the worst and best times in my live. Struggling to bring up a family on unemployment benefits, coping with hubbies serious physical illness and the mental problems he developed in sheer anger and frustration at his inability to provide for his family.

The strains eventually caused my own physical illness, I was eventually able to go to work when I was in my sixties, retiring when I was 70, by then living by myself.

That period meant I managed to pay off the mortgage and move to a smaller house. Then the final move to my current flat. TBH I am in a better financial position now with Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance added onto the state pension, then I have been for many decades. Thanks to AA I have got several expensive devices in my home to enable me to live comfortably (electric bed, recliner/riser chair with extra motors for my back and neck, trolley to take things from kitchen to living room, etc. etc. I am lucky that I have a daughter living locally who can take me to medical appointments which are no accessible by public transport, and her husband ensures all IT systems keep running well.
BT give me a Social Account for my wifi.

I do wonder how many of those who say they cannot manage on their state pensions, etc. are just reluctant to apply for any other help they may be entitled to. I have tried to persuade people to make such applications and they tell me either they cannot be bothered as the forms are too complicated - even before seeing these forms, or they do not want to be on 'benefits'.

growstuff

AreWeThereYet

Depends on whether you mean 'survive' or 'live as I expect to'. Either way there are so many variables there is no way to quantify it.

There are lots of quite debilitating ailments that won't require many visits to hospital but may need extra care at home or transport or special diet plus the cost of medication or prescriptions. Some of which you may get help for and some you won't.

As RosieandherMaw said there can be loads of extra expenses on top of getting actual medical intervention in hospital. An awful lot depends on your environment, your general health, amount of support from family/friends, how close you are to GP and/or hospital, what your actual medical needs are.

Prescriptions are free for anybody of pension age.

That adds another angle into the equation though - yep...prescriptions are free for pension age people and in Wales they are free for everyone.

But - anything "alternative" one buys oneself costs money regardless. Personally I've moved totally over towards doing my own research and then getting natural remedies for things and that sort of stuff can readily clock up hundreds of £s a year in costs. But yep....a bad trip the other day in my home and cue for "Glad I've got in a set of homeopathic remedies I've just bought and I've just got some comfrey ointment" and we're talking tens of £s - but the two things between them are working very well at healing up the damage caused by that fall. Loss of sense of smell in Covid and that will be £120 with a chiropractor and, fortunately, I have in aromatherapy oils/Vaporub/Tiger Balm anyway for smell training - and yep....I have recovered some of my sense of smell so far and planning to keep at it and try and get the rest back.

Hundreds of £s a year can go on natural health treatment in just buying the remedies.

There is no way a single person on State Pension could cover their medical costs and I wonder whether a married person could do so.

MissAdventure

I use a community car scheme, where they charge £15 for a hospital appointment, and will wait up to 2 hours for you.

Would you believe, they have trouble finding people to use the service?

It's not really listed or widely known about - I only heard of it because of being at work, originally.

It was strictly for people who are registered disabled, with proof, but they have relaxed the rules in order to keep the service running.

Is that the one based my side of the bridge MissA ? (run from the community health hub/care home)

My mum used it a couple of times, and it was really good and efficient.

I think Southend hospital has its own service, but it used to invest a lot of waiting around.

M0nica

I think the support structure is so complex it is almost impossible for anyone to know what they might be entitled to and claim it.

Where I live the cost of a taxi for a round trip to the main hospital is £100. Not only that parking at the hospital is extrememly limited, so the 'cost' to us is that DH cannot physically go to a hospital appointment on his own, even though he is otherwise capable of it. I have to drive him there, drop him off, drive over half a mile to the nearest public carpark and sit in the car until he rings me to say he is ready to be collected.

Still the car park is close to Waitrose, so I can go in and get my free coffee and use the loo if needed. But it is a waste of my time and can get cold in winter.

But MOnica, if your DH only received the state pension, he would be eligible to claim his travel expenses. If the only viable way were to be by taxi, that's what he would be able to claim.

CariadAgain

growstuff

AreWeThereYet

Depends on whether you mean 'survive' or 'live as I expect to'. Either way there are so many variables there is no way to quantify it.

There are lots of quite debilitating ailments that won't require many visits to hospital but may need extra care at home or transport or special diet plus the cost of medication or prescriptions. Some of which you may get help for and some you won't.

As RosieandherMaw said there can be loads of extra expenses on top of getting actual medical intervention in hospital. An awful lot depends on your environment, your general health, amount of support from family/friends, how close you are to GP and/or hospital, what your actual medical needs are.

Prescriptions are free for anybody of pension age.

That adds another angle into the equation though - yep...prescriptions are free for pension age people and in Wales they are free for everyone.

But - anything "alternative" one buys oneself costs money regardless. Personally I've moved totally over towards doing my own research and then getting natural remedies for things and that sort of stuff can readily clock up hundreds of £s a year in costs. But yep....a bad trip the other day in my home and cue for "Glad I've got in a set of homeopathic remedies I've just bought and I've just got some comfrey ointment" and we're talking tens of £s - but the two things between them are working very well at healing up the damage caused by that fall. Loss of sense of smell in Covid and that will be £120 with a chiropractor and, fortunately, I have in aromatherapy oils/Vaporub/Tiger Balm anyway for smell training - and yep....I have recovered some of my sense of smell so far and planning to keep at it and try and get the rest back.

Hundreds of £s a year can go on natural health treatment in just buying the remedies.

There is no way a single person on State Pension could cover their medical costs and I wonder whether a married person could do so.

That's your choice. The NHS won't fund "alternative" remedies anyway because they haven't proved to be effective.

Prescriptions are free for anybody of pension age
While expensive for those younger, prescriptions are the least of it!
Homeopathic remedies don’t come cheap, but are a matter of choice.
Transport to hospital and clinic appointments is not. These may be many miles away and a degree of infirmity makes any sort of travel fraught, especially public transport if it exists at all.
Nor is heating at home free and however much we “fitter” pensioners complain - and read GN to see that we do - for the immobile and housebound, a degree of warmth and comfort are essential.
Are We There Yet has put it well and after 20 years of DH’s post- transplant care and ultimately terminal illness, I have been there and got the T shirt.

Franbern 💐. Thanks for all you did for children x. I went to funeral not long ago of one of the first single foster mums approved in 1981. We worked out she’d cared for 250 children and adopted two of her long term children. She stayed with some children who gradually settled in . Many of them were at her funeral and I was fortunate to meet some I’d known well

Sorry, I meant to be relieved a small salary and pension now in force. It was being negotiated when I retired

"Is that the one based my side of the bridge MissA ? (run from the community health hub/care home)

My mum used it a couple of times, and it was really good and efficient.

I think Southend hospital has its own service, but it used to invest a lot of waiting around."

Yes, I think it must be, although there is a similar community minibus service too, I think.

For the sake of trying to sort out fares, and being reimbursed, the charge is well worth it to me.

I've had to attend orsett hospital, and that would be almost impossible on public transport.

I met a couple in their 90s who were referred to orsett, and were told they didn't qualify for any help, as it was he who was unsteady on his feet, but she was the patient.

If you’re a pensioner with ill health you can claim incapacity benefit. Help The Aged helped my dad claim it.

If also getting AA yes

@Buttonjugs incapacity benefit was a working age benefit It's Attendance Allowance that needs to be applied for