Call our team of experts at Compass Continuing healthcare today to see if your relative is entitled to the cost of care home free: 0121 227 8940.
Who is responsible to pay for the cost of care home? Most commonly the responsibility falls on the person who is in the care home themselves. There is a common misconception that the state will look after someone in their old age, but the reality is this is often far from correct.
If an individual has over £23,250 in assets, and assets includes the family home, then they are liable to pay the full cost of their care until their capital assets fall below this figure. This often means that people have to sell the family home to fund the cost of their care.
Even when the assets go below the £23,250 figure an individual will still have to pay a contribution towards the cost of their care from their capital until the figure goes below £14,000. Even once the assets have gone below £14,000 care costs will still have to be paid from any income that is received. As such the cost of care home is very high.
The exception to the above rules regarding the cost of care home is where the need for care is primarily a health need. In this situation the NHS are obligated to step in and pay the cost of care in full, regardless of what assets the individual has.
This funding provided by the NHS is called continuing health care funding, or CHC funding for short.
Clearly it is crucial for the individual to ensure that they receive the NHS continuing healthcare funding if they are entitled to it as the cost of care home without the funding is extremely high. The average care home fee costs in England and Wales are in excess of £800 a week, or put another way over £41,000. To pay this figure from a job you would have to be earning a £60,000 a year salary and every penny of your after tax income would be needed to pay the £41,000 care home costs.
The difficulty arises in the fact that continuing healthcare funding is very expensive for the NHS, just as it is very expensive for the individual to pay privately. As such with limited budgets there are increasing instances of individuals being denied funding when they satisfy the criteria requirements for eligibility as their need for care is primarily a health need.
Accordingly it is often necessary to instigate the appeals procedure when an individual has been denied NHS continuing health care funding they ought to receive. To ensure you stand the strongest chance of success of securing the funding you should contact the Compass Continuing Health Care team. We are industry experts and have a high success rate of securing CHC funding on behalf of our clients. We have extensive experience of gathering and interpreting the relevant independent medical evidence and constructing the strongest possible case built around representations and arguments to contest the NHS scorings when presenting the case to the appeals panel.
If you have a relative paying for the cost of care home do not hesitate, contact us today. Our number is 0121 227 8940. Alternatively you can complete our FREE online assessment and a member of our team will contact you.
Author: Tim Davies LLB
