Tag Archives: nursing home
How 10,000 families are paying massive care home bills they don’t need to
… and how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you
By Tom Rawstorne
Published: 23:12, 13 June 2014 | Updated: 00:25, 14 June 2014
As a leading theatre director, 74-year-old Glen Walford has spent her long working life touring the world. But whenever she returned to Britain, she always knew she had a home — the pretty red-brick house in the Worcestershire countryside where she grew up.
Her childhood bedroom was still there, as well as her office and outbuildings filled with her belongings.
But when Miss Walford’s elderly mother, Mary, broke her hip in 2006 and had to go into a care home, the local council ruled that Miss Walford was only an infrequent visitor to the property — and therefore the house belonged exclusively to her mother, who would have to sell it to pay for her care fees.
Care bills will soak up most of our savings
A rising number of elderly people face losing “almost all of their wealth” to pay for social care, after the Government admitted it was “unable to commit” to reforming the system.
By Rowena Mason, Political Correspondent
In a stark assessment of the growing crisis in elderly care, a government report warns that the country may not be able to afford to fund a cap on care costs for a rapidly expanding ageing population.
The report, released this week, depicts a bleak picture of the future, with a growing number of pensioners slipping into poverty as they use up their savings to fund care and rely on friends and family for help. It lays bare the scale of the task facing ministers and will increase the pressure on David Cameron to address the issue.
An official review of the social care system published last year recommended that the Coalition should introduce a cap of £35,000 on the maximum amount that people have to pay towards a nursing home.
