Funding Elderly Care and Support in the Home
Most older people would prefer to remain in their own homes if they needed care and indeed, for some time now, it has been government policy to encourage and enable this to happen. Finding out what you may be entitled to can be complicated and confusing.
Useful Information
The following needs to be considered:
- Assessing your care and support needs
- Council Funding
- Direct Payments and Individual Budgets
- Direct Payments
- Individual Payments
- Carer’s Allowance
- Non-Means Tested Care
- Attendance Allowance
- Paying for Care Privately
- Disability Living Allowance
- Home Adaptations
- Equity release
A useful link for comprehensive information on funding care in the home is: http://www.housingcare.org/downloads/kbase/3095.pdf
Do I Qualify for State Help?
To ascertain what help can be expected from your Local Authority for help at home, you need to contact them and ask for a Needs Assessment. How a local authority care needs assessment works
- What is a local authority care-needs assessment?
- How does a care-needs assessment work?
- What happens after the assessment?
- Agreeing a package of care.
- Paying for care.
For some very useful answers visit Money Advice Service
What Happens if I Have to Move to a Care Home?
Should care needs be such that a person has to move out of their home and into a Care Home, the Money Advice Service will provide answers to many questions including:-
- Calculating how much one pays for long-term care
- How a means test works
- What happens regarding the home
- Means tests for different types of care
- Residential Care means test
- Care at Home means test
- Paying for long-term care where at home
- Getting rid of assets to avoid paying for care
- A Case Study
Even if you believe the care needs are not important enough or you’re not eligible for funding, make sure a Care-Needs Assessment is carried out. At the very least the assessment will provide the chance to discuss the needs with a health or social care professional who can advise on what help is available.