The Telegraph – Care Costs could decimate your assets

The Telegraph – Care Costs could decimate your assets

Care costs threaten to decimate the wealth that elderly people have spent their lives accumulating, but what are the options available to keep costs down?  

 According to one report the average weekly fee for council registered carers is £396, while it rises to a staggering £759 for IFAs; 92% higher. All of this embroiled against a backdrop of multi-million pounds dividends for investors and huge director salaries. 

Such highly inflated fees give rise to one very important question; why aren’t foster care costs subject to the same level of scrutiny as other social care costs? Care costs threaten to decimate the wealth that elderly people have spent their lives accumulating, but what are the options available to keep costs down?

The price of care has risen in recent years, thanks to a combination of short supply, care home operators struggling financially, and cuts to local authority budgets. An individual in need of nursing care can now expect to pay over £50,000 a year on average, if they have income and assets that exceed the £23,250 threshold above which care has to be self-funded.

According to healthcare research firm Lang & Buisson, the average fee for self-funded nursing care – which includes medical care from registered nurses – is £1,000 a week. 

James Connington | 3 April 2018 | Subscription Required
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The Telegraph – How appalling upfront fees add up

The Telegraph – How appalling upfront fees add up

 ‘I paid £11,000 for six weeks of care’: how ‘appalling’ upfront fees add up A Sunrise nursing home in Winchester; one Telegraph reader was charged £6,000 in entry fees by Sunrise Elderly residents at two of Britain’s biggest care home operators are being forced to pay “administration charges” of up to £6,000 – just for moving in.  

The charges are ostensibly used to cover clinical costs ahead of a resident’s arrival, but industry insiders have described them as “appalling and unnecessary”. Barchester Healthcare and Care UK, which collectively have around 20,000 residents, both charge residents a fee equivalent to up to two weeks’ care before moving in.

Last year, the average cost of nursing care surpassed £1,000 a week for the first time. One Telegraph Money reader, who wished to remain anonymous, was charged £6,000 when her mother moved into a home operated by Sunrise Senior Living.

3 March 2018 | Subscription Required
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The Telegraph – ‘Care home charged £2,000 for nursing my mother – after she’d died’

The Telegraph – ‘Care home charged £2,000 for nursing my mother – after she’d died’

Grieving families whose loved ones die in a care home are being charged after-death fees, often totalling several thousands of pounds.  

The charges, which are ubiquitous across the industry, are ostensibly to cover lost income while rooms are cleared out and cleaned before another resident can move in.

10 February 2018 | Subscription Required
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The Telegraph – Care crisis: this is why Britain’s care homes are charging the dead

The Telegraph – Care crisis: this is why Britain’s care homes are charging the dead

Part of the CMA’s investigation focuses on the terms of contracts entered into when family members enter a care home.  

The watchdog is concerned that homes may be breaking the law by charging large upfront fees when it’s not clear what services they relate to. The inquiry is also looking at cases where care homes continue to collect fees after the person in care has died. In some instances homes are filling beds still being paid for by other families, it is alleged.

Ray Hart of Valuing Care said the bigger issue was homes’ ability to raise charges by as much as they like. “There are cost pressure on them of course but basically these are open-ended contracts and each year they can raise the cost by as much as they like and they don’t give breakdowns explaining the increases.”

18 June 2017 | Subscription Required
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The Telegraph – The real reason why the middle classes pay 194pc more for care

The Telegraph – The real reason why the middle classes pay 194pc more for care

Middle-class families who have to pay for their own care are not merely subsidising council-funded residents but becoming the sole source of care homes’ profits.  

This means that previous calculations of the “self-funder tax” – the difference between fees paid by private residents and fees paid by councils – have been hugely underestimated.

Ray Hart, a director from Valuing Care Ltd, said: “Everyone points to councils’ underfunding of care home places, but the reality is different. The profit motive of these businesses is working its way into the system as well.”

11 February 2017 | Subscription Required
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