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Avoid care homes costs

Call our team of experts at Compass Continuing healthcare today to see if your relative is entitled to free care homes cost. Our office number is 0121 227 8940.

Care home costs are the single greatest financial burden facing the elderly in the United Kingdom today.  Many people incorrectly believe that the state will meet the costs of their care in their old age and have not taken any precautions to plan for the costs in their later years, or indeed taken any steps to protect the assets they have accumulated over their lifetime from being plundered by the state to pay for their care.

Additionally many do not want to face the reality that they will reach an age where they are unable to care for themselves and will require 24 hour care.  With the increase in the average age that people are surviving and the increase of debilitating conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease it is unfortunately an increasing reality that many people will require 24 hour a day care in their later live.  This in turn is very expensive with the average care homes cost in England being quoted as exceeding £1,600 a week, or £83,000 a year for a nursing home.  The care home costs are greater still in certain areas, and can exceed £2,500 a week where the level of care provided is very high, such as for severe dementia patients or those requiring EMI care homes.

Faced with this scenario many are left with no alternative but to pay privately from savings and are forced to sell the family home.

However there is an alternative available that many are not aware of.

Where an individual’s need for care is primarily a health need there is funding available from the NHS called continuing healthcare funding, sometimes referred to as NHS funding for care homes.

This funding meets the care homes cost in full, regardless of what assets the individual has or if they own their own home. The means testing criteria simply does not apply.

The issue comes in that continuing healthcare funding is very expensive for the NHS to pay.  Care homes costs are high for the NHS as they are for the patient.  As such this can result in the NHS applying a higher bar to satisfy for eligibility than ought to be the case, and not correctly completing the continuing healthcare funding assessments so that the person is incorrectly ruled not to be eligible for the funding to pay for their care homes costs.

As such it is often necessary to go through the internal NHS appeals procedure to challenge for the entitlement to funding. The Compass Continuing Healthcare team are experts in securing continuing health care funding to pay for the care home cost in a swift time frame, often before the patient has even been discharged from hospital.  The key to success is to ensure you have an expert in your corner who knows the system and is able to build the strongest case to ensure that where an individual is entitled to funding they receive it.  Every week that an individual doesn’t have the funding is an added cost of £1,600 plus so don’t delay, contact the Compass Continuing healthcare team today.  Our office number is 0121 227 8940.  Or you can complete our FREE assessment form here.

Author: Tim Davies LLB

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