Your article (Soaring care home costs mean you now pay £34,000 a year,
18 November) fails to give an accurate account of the financial obligations of
self-funders. This happens all too often across the media.
Local authorities do
not “pick up the tab” when a person’s assets fall to £23,250. In fact, LAs
continue to take £1 per £250 on a sliding scale until a person’s assets reach
£14,250. At this point a care home resident is allowed to hold on to the
remaining sum. However, their contributions do not end there as a council will
claw back any pensions, state or private, while also expecting families to pay
top-up fees.
My mother has severe dementia and has been in a nursing home for
over four years and has paid over £250,000, having been compelled to sell her
two-bedroom flat and use her savings.
One of the major problems is the privatisation of care homes as there is
no limit to what they can charge a self-funder when demand is so high. This
inevitably means that a person’s resources diminish quickly and then the LA has
to step in.
A few years ago I became aware of newspaper advertisements around
the world encouraginge people to invest in UK care homes as they’d be assured
of a 8% return on their stake.
Yes, there is a compelling need for a concrete
plan on the future of social care, but it must re-examine the whole structure
on which provision is founded. Our elderly must not be treated as mere
commodities but with the dignity and fairness they deserve.
SOURCE:The Guardian, Diane Wall
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