As reported in the BBC, the decision to scrap the proposed cap on care costs has been met with shock and despair by those affected by the cost of care.
The new Labour government has announced that the planned cap on care costs, limiting care cost spending to a maximum of £86,000, has been cancelled and will not be applied. It had previously been delayed until 2025, but the Chancellor has announced that the scheme will be scrapped completely and as a result has never been implemented since it was first announced in 2019 as a solution to the care costs crisis by Boris Johnson.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the public spending think tank, has stated that ditching the cap could see people paying “extremely high social care costs” running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The reality of the situation facing thousands of individuals across England and Wales is that care costs will have to be met in full based on savings and assets, until these figures run below low thresholds. In England, if a patient has anything over £23,250, they must meet the cost of their care in full.
Tim Davies, CEO of Compass CHC, commented:
“Whilst the news of the cap on care being cancelled is disappointing, it is far from surprising. A solution of capping care costs to an upper limit was first proposed by a UK government in 2014. This was postponed and then cancelled before it was re-proposed in a similar form by Boris Johnson in 2019. This was immediately postponed and eventually pushed back until 2025, before today being finally cancelled in its entirety by the Labour government.
It is unclear what the solution is, if any, for individuals who have accumulated assets now being required to spend some, if not all, of their lifetime-accumulated wealth to meet their care costs in old age.
What however has not been discussed or highlighted is that this system of paying for care on a means-tested basis applies only where the need for care is a social need, not a health need. If the individual’s need for care is due primarily to health needs, such as having severe dementia, the entirety of their care costs must be met by the NHS via Continuing Healthcare funding.”
If an individual’s need for care is due to serious or complex health issues, they must be considered for eligibility for Continuing Healthcare funding. If your relative is paying for care and suffers from complex, intense or unpredictable health issues such as severe dementia, please contact us. An expert member of our team will undertake a detailed assessment of the health issues on a free, no obligation and strictly confidential basis, before advising you on your options.
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