Paying for residential and nursing care homes factsheet

Do I have to pay for living in a care home?

Everyone has to pay something towards their care. When we work out how much you should pay, we take both your income and savings into account. People who have over £22,250 in savings will have to pay the full cost of their residential or nursing care.

We will ask you to complete a Financial Assessment Form if we do not already have details of your finances. If you need help with this, please phone Adult and Community Services on 020 8891 7236 / 7244 / 7234.

After you have completed the Financial Assessment form we will work out how much money you will have to pay towards your care home. The following paragraphs tell you how we work this out.

What income will be taken into account when deciding how much you pay?

We will take into account most of the money you have coming in:

• pension credit
• pension from a former employer
• retirement pension
• savings credit
• wages or salary
• other social security benefits

How will my savings be taken into account?

When we work out how much you have to pay, we do not count the first £13,500 of your savings.

For every £250 or part of £250 you have over £13,500 and under £22,250, we add £1 a week to your income. This is called Tariff income and does not reflect the actual interest you get from your savings, which is ignored when calculating your total income.

Who pays the residential or nursing care home?

We usually pay the full fees to the care home. We then collect your contributions from you by monthly direct debit.

I still have bills to pay. What happens whilst I am staying in the residential or nursing care home?

Once you have been living in the home for about 6 weeks, you will have a review meeting with both your care manager and someone from your care home. At this meeting it will be decided if it is in your interest to stay or go back home. Until the review meeting takes place we allow for the following home expenses when working out how much you will have to pay:

• rent or mortgage
• ground rent
• council tax
• water rates
• service charges

Is the value of my house taken into account?

We will normally have to take into account the value of your house when considering how much you pay for your residential or nursing care home.

However, we will not count the value of your home so you will not have to sell it, if:

• your husband, wife or partner lives there
• a relative aged 60 or over lives there
• a relative under 60 who receives certain disability allowances lives there
• a child under 16 for whom you are financially responsible lives there
• Your stay in the home is intended to be for a short period only

We will ignore the value of your house for the first 12 weeks that you live in a care home. This is known as the 12-week property disregard. When the 12-week property disregard has ended, you can either sell the property and pay the full fees or you can ask for a deferred payment. This means that we would pay your fees until the property is sold – you would still need to make a contribution towards the fees from your income and savings. We would place a charge on your property.

Until your property is sold you will pay a contribution based on your income and any savings that you have in excess of £13,500. We will pay the remainder of the cost of your stay on the understanding that this is repaid to us when the property has been sold. We will regularly tell you about the debt that is building up against your property.

Top-ups

If you choose a home that charges higher fees than our usual rate, you will need to find somebody to pay the difference for you. You are not allowed to pay the difference yourself except during the 12 week disregard, or if you are on a deferred payment.

Do you work out the charges in the same way, however long I stay?

No, there are different rules for working out how much you have to pay if your stay is not intended to be permanent. For example, we will make allowance for some of your home expenses.

Short term care

We provide two types of short-stay: respite care and short term care.

Respite Care Is for the carer - it gives them a break for example to go on holiday. But your care needs are still taken care of. If you need respite care and you have savings of over £22,250 that are in your name only, or you do not want to give us details of your finances, you will have to pay the maximum respite care charges of £302 per week

Short term care Is for the person who receives the care. If you need short term care and you have savings of more than £22,250, you would pay the full cost of the care.

NHS funded nursing care (free nursing care)

Free nursing care is available to all residents who are assessed as needing nursing care by an NHS healthcare professional. You will still have to pay a contribution for accommodation charges. This will be worked out in the normal way.

For further information you can contact us on:

Tel: 020 8891 7971
Text: 07800 002439
Email: adultsocialservices@richmond.gov.uk
Web: www.richmond.gov.uk