Paying for social care - good news or bad news?

Hospice care? Marie Curie nurses?

Couldn't Macmillan nurses help?

But what about her pain control DD? Aren't her meds available from the NHS?

www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2017/05/paying-social-benefits

Yes, welshwife it's a huge worry.

People criticising May seem to be unaware of the current situation.

I'll repeat...

My mother has cancer (and loads of other conditions). We've been told that she could die any day. The hospital can do nothing for her, so she's been discharged and is at home.

My mother has the state pension, a low occupational pension and industrial injury benefit. She doesn't "earn" enough to pay income tax and has savings of about £30k with no property. She's worked a damned sight harder for those savings than people who just sat in a house which appreciated in value.

My sister pays for a cleaner for two hours a week (and has done for months) My sisters and I visit her at least once a day to wash her, make sure she eats/drinks something and check her post,because she's nearly blind. I travel 120 miles a day.

The cancer is getting the better of her and she really needs morphine, oxygen and care which my sisters and I can't provide.

As she has savings over £23k, she's going to have to pay for it herself, whether she stays at home or goes into care. She would have to pay something on a sliding scale until her savings are below £14k, which will just about pay for her funeral and expenses.

We've tried to find a care home, but it's not easy, unless she self-funds, because the council won't pay the care home providers the full amount. It seems highly likely that my sisters and I will have to continue caring for her at home (which is what she wants anyway).

Whatever happens, it's likely she'll have nothing left. The proposals in the Conservative manifesto would have meant that she would have paid nothing and would at least have been able to think that she left her daughters a little something.

Please excuse me, if I have zilch sympathy for the people who are moaning that they would only be able to leave £100k and that cancer sufferers have an advantage.

French hospitals charge for bed and food - where we are it is about €100 a night.

Paying for a care home is a problem for all of us whether or not we need to go into one - I would happily contribute to a scheme which would pay for others and just be glad if I did not need to avail myself of the service.
I must say that I agree with those who point out that dementia or Alzheimer's is just as much an illness as cancer etc and should be treated the same when it comes to funding. Frailty is possibly a slightly different kettle of fish.

Has anyone been able to see what happens to people who have no assets? Where they will be put must be a real worry to their family. Would it be any better or more economic if the service was back in Council or similar care?

Norah I agree...I don't see why the state should pay if I have money available to pay! Anya I would also prefer your option if I could find it!

Paying good staff as well as the costs of full board accommodation and the cost of buying and maintaining a building in good condition is expensive.
My mum was in a wonderful place run on a non profit basis but was still expensive. It was worth every penny though. The quality of the care was terrific.
We're going to have to find ways of providing good care at reasonable cost. Could be some interesting new developments. I can only hope so.

ps at the time it would have cost more to have her cared for at home (which she would have preferred.)

One point which I don't think has been raised, is why are fees so high? When Mum went into a (very good) care home in 1998 she paid £250 pw. Now, the fees must be at least 4-5 times that. Is it all due to inflation? Or can something be done to bring down fees?

It really isn't just about our generation though, is it. We really need to see and insurance scheme in place for the generations to come too.

Anya, if that's how you feel that is good to you. I don't want to pass the cost of my care on before I have exhausted my own means, thus I don't see a need for the limits. The £100K limit is quite high, in my mind.

Let's put it another way. I am not going to waste my children’s inheritance on my dwindling and probably incontinent life in an inadequate and over-priced care home or being put on a potty and then to bed at 6.00pm in my own home by so-called carers.

I would prefer to find a rational and painless way to end my own life. I’m sure that many will share my opinion.

No one said that did they?

Anya, Must whoever inherits pay more than the value of the estate?

The point is, if you have no liquid assets, you will not be paying for care in your own home or in a residential setting. Your children, or whoever inherits, will be left to pick up the 'bill' which could be any sum the PM decides upon and it is they who will have to sell the house and hand over the cash.

That is unless the house is 'seized' as payment.

I hope this bill will be itemised to the nth degree too.

Rigby46, you are correct to making more people aware to funding of social care. You say "It is wrong that currently those going into care can be left with only about £23k" to me that is all well and good as long as the care is decent. I do not need more than £23K for final costs after death, surely £100K is plenty.

When my Dad was ill , he had to be assessed to see wither he need to go to a care home or a nursing home , as he was ill with cancer he came under the category of needing to be in a nursing home , as it turned out he went to a hospice where he died. But if he had been unable to care for himself or had ,had dementia he would have been deemed as needing to be in a care home . Years ago governments didn't have the same degree of involvement re social care,as families use to look after , poorly/elderly relatives themselves. As a child we had one poorly gran living with us, & we took cooked meals carried in a biscuit tin for the other gran . Not sure what the answers are, & we are tending to live a lot longer than we use to.

I'm afraid there are quite a few such stories Ginny and it is very frightening when you think you may eventually have to look for a home for a loved one. I think/hope/have every intention of keeping mum at home and, in a sense, her age is one her side at 96. One of the things that I find really worrying is that some homes ban relatives that complain so you would be unable to keep a check on what is happening.

I have had friends whose mums - it has only been mums - have had to go into care and one was less successful and then move to a better home and the other seemed to be what they needed but in both cases it was only for a very short while. Again we would move heaven and earth to keep mum at home because this is so often the outcome but facing reality this is just not always possible.

skwawkbox.org/2017/05/22/corbyn-agrees-with-the-skwawkbox-on-mays-fake-dementiatax-u-turn-ge17/

This report of a care home is horrific. People pay for this?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-39996953

Oh dear, well at least it's made me laugh while it worry about my pigeon. I knew I was tired but not that tired!

I think I have it clearly in my mind now. We need an insurance paid by everyone working and pensioned as they do in Germany. 1.5% seems OK but I have no idea how much that would raise. On top of this, this generation of pensioners who have not paid anything would have to pay something if they have the means because we didn't start 25 years ago like Germany. Does this sound very like Dilnot? I am sure his recommendations were very similar. Too tired to read (obviously )so off to bed.

CCHQ, Conservative Campaign HQ, not GCHQ.

Somebody has just said that if Maybot thinks that £100,000 is a decent amount to leave for your children, why is the IHT amount not the same?

Norah one of the spin offs from this sorry debacle is that it has made more people aware of the whole issue of the funding of social care and the principles that should underpin it. It is wrong that currently those going into care can be left with only about £23k, it is wrong that there are differences in the treatment of one's home between domiciliary and residential care, it is wrong that there is cross subsidy in care homes from self funders to those paid for by la, it is wrong that so many care homes are inadequate, it is wrong that domicilary care staff are exploited and that people receiving care can have several different careers over one week and only a 15 min visit, it is wrong that some large private care providers are making a fortune from both tax payers and people who worked all their lives and built up a pension and some savings, it is wrong that successive governments have failed to tackle this properly and that when EM made a proposal that all estates should pay £25k towards social care that tge Tories clutched their pearls and screeched death tax led by the DM. It's wrong that IHT thresholds have been put up - in fact, it's just all so bloody awful snd wrong - there is absolutely nothing right about the current system or whatever bastardised proposal TM comes up with

I can't believe that's for real. They must surely have to be apolitical publicly.