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UK: How Elderly Are Being Cheated
By Tony Levene reports, The Guardian
July 5, 2003 UK - One
in three will need some long term care. It's the flipside of living
longer. No one knows who will need it and who won't. But one thing is sure
- it's very costly. Expect to pay around £9,000 a year for two to three
hours help a day in your own home and around £25,000 a year for
round-the-clock care in a residential home. Financing
long term care is a mess. Rules vary according to where you live in the
UK. But government agencies are exploiting the complexities to deprive
those needing care, or their families, of financial help which is theirs
by right. Some
authorities deny help which they must legally give. They either rely on
ignorance, or hope families will be too embarrassed to push for their
rights. Many simply try to bamboozle care needers and their families into
acquiescence. But earlier this year, Hertfordshire County Council had to
pay out £26,000 to family of a man, now dead, who was wrongly assessed. Families
also have to cope with means testing and struggle over which kind of care
elderly people need. Owen
Wright at the Care Funding Bureau says: "Local authorities have to
label elderly people requiring continuing care as either 'nursing care' or
'social care' cases. Nursing care includes such needs as frequent
medication or artificial feeding while social care would comprise help
with dressing, washing or mobility. "There
is a financial advantage to families if the elderly person is assessed as
needing medical care rather than social care. Equally, there is financial
pressure from the government on the local authority staff carrying out
assessments to opt for a social care ruling as a money saving move." Nursing
care should be free from the NHS. Social care costs depends on the
financial means and assets of the person needing care. Anyone
going into a long-term residential home for non-medical care with assets
of £12,900 in England or less should receive local authority help. This
covers the gap between their own income and "typical" care home
costs or actual costs if lower. Someone
with a weekly pension income totalling £200 and care home costs of £450
should have the £250 gap paid for by the local council. Once total assets
top £19,500 there is no council help. For those with assets between the
two figures, there is a sliding scale. "The
trick is to know what can be disregarded. You can't expect local
authorities to help you." says Mr Wright. Shared
beneficial ownership Married
couples and unmarried partners (including same-sex couples) often own
their home through a "joint tenancy". This says each brick is
owned by the couple and is indivisible. But they should consult a
solicitor and move to "tenants in common" where each person owns
a 50% share which can be transferred or sold. Each
partner should will their share of the property to children. When the
first dies, the remaining partner continues to live there. If the survivor
needs care, the means test can only include that person's share of the
home. But
valuing this is not as simple as councils think. Local authorities have to
use the open market value of that share - not take half the worth of a
similar property. "Half
a £250,000 house is only £125,000 if someone will pay it. But who will
buy half a house with a sitting tenant where owners of the other half have
made it clear they will never sell. This effectively reduces the value to
nothing," Mr Wright says. Mental
Health Act Anyone
needing long term care because they have been assessed by doctors under
section 117 of the Mental Health Act because they are a danger to
themselves or to others, can have long term care at no cost. This can be
helpful to family budgets in some cases of dementia. Local
authorities often ignore this point, relying on ignorance and a dislike
from families of having a relation labelled in this way. Temporary
stays Local
authority assessors have to decide if the care need is temporary or
permanent. Most just box-tick "permanent" when they can include
the value of a property in their calculations. But a temporary stay can
last up to one year. This
could apply to someone who suffers a stroke and then makes sufficient
recovery that they can return home. Families will often need to argue the
case and produce medical evidence. Property
disregards A
property is most people's biggest or only asset. But its value must be
ignored if: · A spouse still lives there; · A relative who
is aged 60 or over lives there; · A relative of any age who is
incapacitated lives there; · A minor aged under 16 lives in the
property. "Don't be beholden to the person doing the assessment. Know the options, know the rules. Councils rely on ignorance and people doing as they are told," says Mr Wright. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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