Long Term Care costs (FOI)

Request 

How many care homes wait until people have spent all of their savings paying for their care?

Under Pinewood’s guidelines residents will only be charged Long Term Care (LTC) rates when the residents’ savings have depleted to income support levels and they have been notified by Social Security that this is the case, despite their assets being below the threshold stated in the LTC literature.

How many individuals since the start of the LTC have been placed in this situation?

Response

The Long Term Care scheme supports three types of cost.

• Standard care costs.
• A set weekly amount specific to each care level in the scheme.

• Standard co-payment
• A standard cost for living in a care home.

• Additional costs
• If you are in a care home and choose to have a non-standard room or facilities, then the cost may be greater than the standard co-payment.

The department does not track the fees being charged to an individual other than to inform the care home where we are funding a standard placement and that they should charge accordingly.

The department would not inform or influence care package arrangements between an individual and a care provider, the package of care is for the customer or their agent to arrange at a care home that fits both their need and budget.

The tracking of individual care placement costs does not fall into the remit of the department and is for the customer / agent to manage where appropriate.

The department does accrue care cost information only, in order to calculate when an individual would have reached the care cost cap, and thus be eligible for the universal benefit. This cap is based on care costs, not total package costs.