Andy Burnham’s plan for a ‘free’ National Care Service could save families just £3 a week on care home bills, analysis suggests. The Telegraph has the story.
The Prime Minister has promised a system that would be free at the point of use and protect people’s homes and savings by helping to pay for care home costs.
Officials are examining Scotland’s model, under which the state provides a £260-a-week “personal care” payment for help washing and dressing for those in residential care. Residents still face bills for bed and board.
A Telegraph investigation has revealed that someone with dementia paying for residential care could face almost identical bills of around £70,000 a year – regardless of whether they are in Scotland or England.
Analysis shows that Scottish care home fees, including personal care as well as accommodation and other costs, are typically £257 a week higher than in England.
If this were mirrored in England, it would almost entirely cancel out the weekly state payments of £260 for “personal care”, leaving families just £3 a week better off.
Experts say Scottish care homes charge more than in England because £260 is insufficient to cover the actual cost of personal care, leading to inflated residential fees.
As a result, families remain exposed to substantial costs and the prospect of selling their homes to meet the bills.
It costs £1,603 a week for an elderly woman with dementia, who has savings above the means-testing thresholds, to move into a Scottish care home.
Deducting the state’s £260.30 personal care payment leaves her paying £1,342.70 a week, or £69,820 over a year.
In England, the published average for residential dementia care is £1,346 a week, or £69,992 a year. This equates to a difference of just £172 a year, or £3.31 a week.
Experts warned that unless the Government prevented charges for bed and board from swallowing up the savings from free care, the reforms would risk amounting to a “care con”.
Worth reading in full.
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Snake Oil Salesman attempts to sell Snake Oil.
The watching crowd, who love Snake Oil, are delighted so they don’t ask “what’s in it; does it work; how much is it?”
When someone does start asking those questions, it turns out that the Snake Oil actually IS Snake Oil and won’t cure anything.
Who’d a thunk it!
Given taxpayers in both countries pay the same NI rate how can the government justify the self funding threshold disparity – In England, you must self-fund your care if your capital exceeds £23,250, whereas in Scotland the upper self-funding threshold is significantly higher at £35,000
We should not be so ungrateful – tuppence ha’penny off bus fares and 3 quid off care home bills is better than nowt.
ain’t it the truth
You forgot the £2 a month VAT off your electricity bill …. which is about to go up by £20 a month because of the Government’s lunatic Net Zero policy.
So much extra money to spend, surely the government should set up a helpline to assist people who can’t think what to do with all this surplus cash.
It sounded good to the happy clappers at the Labour conference though and that’s what matters. Unsurprisingly the plan starts to fall apart upon first contact with reality.
Sums not adding up? Surely not?