‘I cut Mum’s care home fees by £15,000 a year’
A Telegraph reader challenged her mother’s care home and it agreed to cut its fees by £289 per week. Here is how you can do the same
If you challenge the costs of a care home you may just land yourself – or the family member who is paying – a substantial discount. That is what happened to Susan Stressing, who, having read a report in The Telegraph in January, decided to make inquiries about the care home bill she was paying for her mother, Kathleen Willett.
Mrs Willett’s bill has now been reduced by £289 a week. That equates to a saving of more than £15,000 a year.
The case emerges as the cost of care homes continues to rise steeply, and as criticism grows of the Government’s plans to reform care funding. Legislation to introduce a “lifetime care fees cap”, which would limit care costs paid by any individual to £72,000, is going through Parliament now. It is supposed to become effective next year. The cap excludes accommodation and other costs, and so could still see people paying well over the proposed £72,000 limit.
The case also highlights a problem that The Telegraph has previously covered: the tendency of care home providers to pass on regular, sometimes dramatic, increases in costs, without necessarily detailing how the increases arise or explaining precisely what services are being provided.
Any lifetime care cost cap – effective or otherwise – comes too late for Ms Stressing’s mother.
Four years ago, after a fall, Mrs Willett broke her hip. She was then 94. “She really needed to go into a care home where she could be better looked after,” said Ms Stressing, who has power of attorney over her mother’s financial affairs. Mrs Willett’s sister was already in the local home in Gosmore, Hertfordshire, so it was a forgone conclusion that Mrs Willett would go there too.
One difference was that care for Mrs Willett’s sister was in part being paid for by the local authority. Mrs Willett, however, had owned her property, and so did not qualify for financial assistance. She was what the care industry terms a “self-funder”.
Self-funders generally pay 10pc to 20pc more than those paid for by the State – even where they receive exactly the same accommodation and care.
At the outset the bill came to £750 a week, all inclusive. The care home, which is part of the national Four Seasons chain of around 500 homes, was very comfortable. “I do want to stress that I have always been very happy with the level of care,” said Ms Stressing.
But the costs climbed. In February 2011 they rose to £785 a week, then to £832 in 2012, £882 in February 2013, and £935 this year. That represented a 12pc increase in two years, and meant that by the beginning of this year, about £170,000 had been paid in total.
In January of this year Ms Stressing read The Telegraph’s account of Eunice Edmondson, a 94-year-old woman whose care home had billed her for a total of £600,000 since she moved there in 2001 – and whose annual fee has risen from an original £31,000 to £70,000 today.
The case prompted Ms Stressing to contact Valuing Care, a firm mentioned in the January article, whose clients are usually local authorities. It is one of several consultancies that collate data about different care home providers’ costs. This enables it to negotiate competitive rates on behalf of clients.
Such firms can also assess the services being provided to a resident to see whether they are accurately reflected in the bills.
In Mrs Willett’s case, the care home was asked a series of questions about the care required and being given. After some correspondence it agreed to reduce her weekly bill from £935 to £646.
“I saw the article and thought yes, I will take this matter up,” Ms Stressing said. “It was not that I was unhappy with the care – I just wasn’t sure what was being given. Initially the management came back and said she needed one-to-one care, and it said that’s what she was getting.”
Ms Stressing, who lives about 20 miles from her mother’s home and visits at least once a week, added: “It has never been entirely clear what she has received by way of care. Even now, I think there is some dispute about what care was provided and for how long. There is a sense in which the home says: ‘Here is the bill, take it or leave it.’ ”
As with Eunice Edmondson, whose financial affairs were being handled by her nephew, there is a worry in Mrs Willett’s case that her money – most of which came from the sale of her house – will run out.
Four Seasons declined to speak to The Telegraph but sent the following statement: “In the case of Mrs Willett, she initially required a period of one-to-one care which was calculated in her fees and supported by a detailed costing. Following a change of manager in the home, Mrs Willett’s daughter questioned whether the same level of care was still being provided and whether the higher rate was necessary. We advised that it was no longer needed. As a result, we reassessed Mrs Willett’s care fees and the bill was reduced.
“Residents’ care plans are reviewed on a frequent basis and the reduced care requirement would have been recorded in Mrs Willett’s care plan and notified to her daughter in the normal course of events. We are sorry that she had cause to ask the question before we notified her of the reduced requirement, which was due to there being a transition as the new manager took up the post.”
Care fees nightmare: wealthier families ‘receive less advice’
Research by Which? the consumer group, into how 30 families negotiated the process of arranging care for a loved one has shown how harrowing, confusing and painful the process can be.
From diaries kept by the 30 families, patterns emerged of the difficulties most commonly faced, including people being asked repeatedly for the same information, being given wrong advice and not being told about sources of help. Which? found that those families especially likely to be poorly supported were those with the most money: the group of people termed by the system as “self-funders”.
Which?, like charities Independent Age and Age UK, publishes helpful guides on the process of finding a care home and how to finance living in one. But it warns councils to do more to help people through the process – regardless of their financial circumstances.
Jessica Moran, Which? policy adviser on care, said: “Your council has a duty to assess what you need, regardless of how much money you have.”
richard.dyson@telegraph.co.uk
