Nursing Homes Costs

Nursing homes costs will be required for every resident in care; although costs will vary from home to home. Care must be paid for by the residents during their stay and will be paid for using money from capital or savings depending on amount. Of course not all people needing care have access to any savings or capital; in these cases funding may be available to pay for the care needed.

Assessments

Any person in the UK requiring care is legally entitled to receive an assessment to decide if their condition is serious enough to demand the need for 24 hour nursing. The test is beneficial to everyone and can determine if nursing homes costs can be aided through funding. If assessments do show the need for care and if the local authority is being considered to provide funding then you will be forwarded for a means test, the test will require you to disclose full details of any assets that you may have.

Local authority nursing homes costs payment

Those that have saved well throughout their lives and built up a healthy amount of assets such as owning a home or having savings accounts will more than likely be responsible for paying towards the full nursing homes cost of long term care. Any income that is received by the resident will to be used to pay for care, although there will be an allowance that can go towards personal expenses. A resident`s assets that are used for payment have two thresholds, these are known as an upper and lower limit. Currently owned or sometimes previously own property is classed as the main asset; this can be used towards funding if currently owned and unoccupied, if a spouse or partner is still present and living in the home then this asset is not taking into account, the value of the property is also not counted for the first twelve weeks of care in all cases.

The lower limit threshold starts from £13,750 in the UK and the higher limit threshold starts from £22,000, each resident will receive a sum of £21.90 (£22.00 in Wales) for personal expenses. If assets are above the higher threshold then nursing home costs will be paid in full, if they are lower than the lower threshold guideline then social services will pick up the shortfall of costs, income are personal expenses are taken into account before the shortfall is determined.

Some cases appear from time to time whereby people try to avoid paying for care; this is done through appearing to give away assets, known of deprivation of assets. Doing this is not advisable by anyone seeking care as it could result in any payments by social services being cancelled. The local authority reserve and may exercise the right to conduct an investigation to confirm that assets have not be disposed of in this way. If they are found to have been gifted then local authorities can demand that assets are returned or treat them as still be possessed by the care recipient.