Call our team of experts at Compass Continuing healthcare today to see if your relative is entitled to free care for funding a care home. Our office number is 0121 227 8940.
Alternatively please complete our FREE online assessment and we will contact you. Funding a care home can prove to be an extremely expensive scenario to have to face. Average costs of care for a nursing home in England and Wales are in the region of £800 a week, or in excess of £41,000 a year. Faced with these figures many individuals are forced to spend their entire life savings, divert their pensions and any other income they receive and sell the family home all to ensure that funding a care home in their twilight years is possible.
There is however funding available via the NHS called continuing health care funding that pays care costs in full where the individual’s need for care is primarily a health need. It is estimated that in excess of 100,000 people ought to be receiving this funding but are not. Additionally many people that have sought this NHS funding for care homes have been incorrectly denied it during the continuing care assessment process.
For these reasons it is crucial that if you have queries regarding funding a care home and the cost of care you contact an expert to assist you through the process. At Compass Continuing Healthcare we specialise in securing NHS funding for individual’s from day one to ensure they are not liable for any care costs. Contact us today on 0121 227 8940 or complete our online assessment and a member of our team will contact you.
In the absence of continuing healthcare funding an individual will have to fund the cost of their care in full if they have assets exceeding £23,250. As highlighted costs exceed £800 a week on average in England for a nursing home.
Even once their assets go below £23,250 the individual will have to part contribute to the cost of their care until their assets fall to less than £14,000. Even when the overall assets reach below £14,000 the individual will have to meet the cost of care with a contribution consisting of the majority of any income they receive such as a private pension.
The £23,250 total for assets also includes any property owned, so it is not the case that the family home is exempt. Often the sale of the family home can be forced to meet the cost of care.
As such funding a care home can be an extremely expensive scenario to have to face and all options should be explored to ensure whether there are any alternatives to paying privately for care. We are often informed that individuals have been dissuaded from applying for continuing healthcare funding by the NHS and social services. Our advice would always be to seek the advice of an impartial expert such as ourselves and to consider that it is in the interests of the NHS to dissuade people who ought to be entitled to continuing healthcare funding not to pursue an application because the liability will fall to the NHS to meet the care costs if NHS funding for a care home is provided.
Contact an expert member of the Compass Continuing healthcare team today for further guidance if you have any questions or concerns about funding a care home. Our office number is 0121 227 8940 or you can complete our free online assessment here.
Author: Tim Davies LLB
