RE: tec13 Sep 2021 00:17
New rules state that nobody will have to pay more than £86,000 towards their care but do not include living expenses
New rules state that nobody will have to pay more than £86,000 towards their care but do not include living expenses.
Why the £86k social care cap won’t save your home
Older people still risk losing their homes and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on care, despite the Government’s new plan to save pensioners from devastating costs.
Boris Johnson raised taxes to their highest level since the Second World War last Tuesday. The Prime Minister justified the extreme tax rise by stating the extra funds raised would fix the country’s care crisis. However, experts have warned the plan will still leave older people exposed to huge costs.
‘There is a danger you might suffer a catastrophic loss of assets’
The new rules state that from October 2023, nobody will have to pay more than £86,000 towards their care costs. But this cap will cover only so-called “personal care”, such as help with washing and eating. Living expenses, such as food, rent and energy bills – charges known as “hotel costs” or “non-personal care” – will not be included.
A typical person who entered residential care costing £1,100 per week would spend about £350 on personal care, the retirement firm Just Group estimated. The rest would be considered non-personal care and would thus fall outside the Government’s cap.
Each year, only £18,000 of the person’s £60,000 care bill would contribute towards the cap. They would therefore start receiving government support only after five years. During this time, they would have spent an estimated £210,000 of their own money on their non-personal care costs.
In addition to the £86,000 that would contribute towards the cap, their total expenditure before they received state aid would be £296,000, more than triple the £86,000 “cap”.
The Government will consult with the industry on a cap for non-personal care costs later this year. However, Caroline Abrahams, of the charity Age UK, urged the Government to announce the limit “as soon as they possibly can” to provide some certainty.
The Government said the share of people who benefit directly from state support in the social care system will increase from around half to two thirds.
However, few will live long enough to benefit. Half of people do not survive longer than a year after they move into a care home, meaning they will have spent thousands on non-personal care costs but will never be helped by the £86,000 cap.
LaingBuisson, a healthcare data agency, estimated that only 5pc of vulnerable elderly people would be able to benefit from the cap in their lifetime.
Natasha Curry, of the Nuffield Trust, a healthcare think tank, also criticised the Government’s rules. “They use a narrow definition of what requires personal care,” she said. This includes washing and dressing, but excludes shopping. “That means the plan would not include something like helping
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