Cost of 24-hour care

Care funding options explained

When faced with financing long-term care, it is important to understand if there is any support you can get in terms of funding that can minimise the financial investment needed for your chosen option. You may be entitled to either social care funding provided by Local Authorities or healthcare funding provided by the NHS.

For families that are faced with having to fund live-in care themselves (referred to as self-funding care) there are options to help with live-in care costs, including a Care Fees Annuity, which is an insurance policy you purchase to cover the cost of your care, or by realising capital in your assets through an Equity Release scheme.

Read the Live-in Care Hub’s guide to funding and financing care at home here.

NHS continuing healthcare

Healthcare in the UK is free at the point of delivery. Therefore, if you have an identified healthcare need and are receiving care for this in your own home, you may be eligible for NHS continuing healthcare funding, which is arranged and funded by your local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). If you feel you are entitled to this funding, you need to visit your GP who will complete an initial assessment and refer your case to the CCG for consideration. They will then ask you to complete a full assessment with a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals so they can understand the complexity of your needs.
Sadly, for many, specialist conditions like dementia are not in isolation considered a healthcare need so care for dementia is not necessarily funded by NHS continuing healthcare. It is always worth checking though, as funding can considerably contribute to the overall cost of care and in many cases will fund the total cost.
If you are successful in securing funding it is worth noting that funding is reviewed by the CCG annually, so if your needs decrease because you are receiving good quality care your funding may be at risk and you may have to start funding the total cost of your care.

Local authority funding

The Local Authority will only fund care at home (referred to as social funding) if your assets are worth less than £23,500 in England, which we know that sadly for many families their financial situation exceeds. The figure differs across the country and in Scotland is £26,500. To understand if you are eligible, a care needs assessment will be completed by your local authority to understand your specific needs. You will also be required to do a means assessment, so the local authority can better understand your financial circumstances and how this impacts your ability to meet care fees.

In addition, you may be eligible for other forms of local authority funding including exemption of discounts on your council tax, attendance allowance, and savings credit. All of these forms of funding can be used to reduce the cost of receiving care in your home.

Self-funding care

Care fees annuities and equity release schemes are two common options for self-funding care.

A care fees or immediate needs annuity is a type of insurance policy also known as a ‘care fees plan’ that is commonly used to self-fund care. An individual will have to go through an assessment to understand their current health and care needs and what will be required in the future. Following this assessment, a fee is paid in order to cover weekly care fees.

Equity release schemes enable homeowners aged 55 years or older to release some or all of the accrued value of their property without the need for selling their home or moving elsewhere. This allows you to use the value of your home to pay for any care fees or to purchase a care fee annuity.

The Good Care Group works in partnership with Symponia, a professional body representing over 120 financial and legal advisors who are all specialists in the area of financing private care fees. They can help you with funding long-term care at home so you can have peace of mind and reassurance that you are receiving the very best advice.

Eric and Alma had been married for over 65 years. Sadly, Eric’s deteriorating health meant that a move into a care home seemed an inevitable end to their life together. Alma and the family wanted him to stay at home but knew that this would not be an easy decision, as Eric needed specialist personal care and Alma was unable to provide this. As a potential solution, the family considered having a live-in-carer and both arranged a meeting with The Good Care Group. Following our assessment, we knew we could deliver a live-in care package to meet their needs.

Expert advice from Symponia

To help them explore the best way to fund the care they needed, they talked through the option of equity release with the local Symponia member, who suggested that the whole family became involved in the discussions. A key decision was how much money should be released. Did the family just take enough for one year and continue to draw down each subsequent year, until the maximum sum had been exhausted?

Exploring an immediate care plan

To help the family get the peace of mind they desired, the advisor suggested they explored an immediate care plan. They calculated the income Eric and Alma received, by way of pensions and other investments and compared that to their expenses, which had to take into account not only the household costs, which largely remained unchanged, but importantly Erics care costs.

After assessing Eric’s health, the cost of the immediate care plan, with a built in automatic 5% inflation was £92,000. Eric and Alma then used equity release to by the Care Plan. As their property was valued at over £500,000, the release of equity was just under 18.5% of the total value.

This meant that Eric was able to receive the high-quality care at home he needed and they both had the peace of mind that his needs would be provided for, for the remainder of his life. Much needed reassurance when they needed it.