Does anyone know where we stand if a care home puts prices up unreasonably?

My grandma is in a care home near us. She paid the highest rate when she moved in three years ago (sold her house) and the home has consistently put the fees up about 5% every year since.

We feel that with negligible inflation and no wage rises for the staff, the price should have remained constant this year but we've received a letter saying it's going up another 5%. I bet the rates they charge the council haven't changed and she receives the least "hands on" care of all the residents.

Obviously, she can't up sticks and leave so they are charging almost whatever they want – in this case £2900 a month.

A private care home can charge anythng they like just as a residential house landord can charge what ever price they like.

wow, that is an icredible amount of money per month. you would expect one to one hands on care at that price, but no doubt it is staffed by underpaid carers.

barca2 – you or I could move out without difficulty if prices go up. A 90 year old who doesn't drive and can't walk for is effectively captive and forced to pay whatever they choose to charge.

No doubt it is written into the contract as "annual increase of 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is the greater".

Sorry bud.

I'm not saying it's morally right Flaperon, just answering your question. The nursing home sets their own prices and if they don't get enough residents, they'll reset the tariff just as a cafe charging to much for cake would.
When your grandmother's capital drops below £6,000, social services will take over and if your grandmother doesn't have any special medical needs, she may well be moved to a council care home unless the family (or somebody else) stumps up the cash.
This could be a good time for you and anybody else in your family that cares to get together and start doing some sums.

An elderly friend of my family sold her house and moved into a care home, after about a year she decided she'd had enough and moved out into a sheltered community. She was much happier there for about 10 years until becoming very ill about 3 months before her 98th birthday.
Is your grandmother active enough to consider something like a sheltered community?

Care homes (I think) require licensing from the local authority, whilst I've got a feeling fees are out of the LA's hands, it might be worth discussing with someone responsible for care homes in the LA if they are aware of the pricing practices of that particular establishment.

Nothing they can do. It's just like any private business. If it's prices are more than people will pay, they don't get the custom.
LA's will have a price structure if they have social service residents but private paying residents? Nope.
I used to process Pension Credit claims and capital and paying for care homes when working out savings and guaranteed credit was full of this stuff.
If your grandmother's capital drops below £6,000 and she goes into council care and gets guaranteed pension credit, all of her award will go to social services and she'll receive about £9.00 per week 'pocket money'.
Depressing isn't it?

Flaperon, check with the csiw, in wales or if england the care quality commission,the price that your grandmother should be paying, and the services she recieves,for her so called care.

You are allowed 18,000 pounds before you have to pay for care,i think not the 6,000 quoted,also approach the social services dept of the Local authority to see if they will fund her care, remember there is a difference between Nursinfg and Residential care.

Heres a good linky,

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/CaringForSomeone/CareHomes/DG_10031525

If in doubt ASK lots of questions,take notes and ask for any decissions to be made in writeing so you have a copy,as you may find ss will deny conversations,and basicly lie.

Also phone the home and give details of a new resident looking to move in,ask for prices etc,using your grandmothers details,to check if theyre not money grabbing capitalist,thieving organisations, as was the one i dealt with.

Current LA threshold for funding is £23k, and you still have to watch the top up a home will charge (above that of the LA contract rate). Unfortunately private homes can charge what they like. We had a similar situation with my aunt, a change of home owner sent the prices soaring. Fortunately, she still had the mental capacity to understand what the situation was, and accepted she had to move, despite being upset about the move. We decided that we would give her a lift to look around other homes, and help her with the move etc. Even as a self funder our local Social Services did an assessment of her needs so we knew what type of home we were after, and they were very helpful in general.

whoops, sorry, it's been 3 years since I did it. £6,000 is the threshold of capital before it's taken in to account as notional income for guaranteed credit cacuations (or it was back then but it might have gone up since).

Capital and the value of your home
If you live in England and have over £23,000 in capital you'll be assessed as being able to meet the full cost of your care. If you live in other parts of the UK, the following amounts of capital apply:

in Scotland – £22,500
in Wales – £22,000
in Northern Ireland – £23,000
Your capital will be counted as generating an income according to the following table:

Amount of capital you have if you live in England How your capital is used to calculate your contribution to your care home fees
Over £23,000 You will be assessed as being able to meet the full cost of your care
Between £14,000 and £23,000 Capital between these amounts will be calculated as providing you with an income of £1 per week for every £250 of your savings

£14,000 or under Your capital will be ignored in calculating how much you have to contribute to the cost of your care

If you own your home then it will usually be counted as capital 12 weeks after you move permanently into a care home. The value of your home will not be counted as capital if certain close relatives still live there.

From my linky above.

I am afraid that neither the total fee nor the increase is unreasonable. Unfortunately you get what you pay for in this sector and homes charging much below that will be cutting corners big time. I suggest you go and have a look around a few homes and check the fees against the quality. If you can find significantly better than a move is perhaps a good idea but I doubt you will find better cheaper.

depressing init.
logan's run had the right idea.

This kind of thing though pretty much sums up the sh1t we are in:

If you live in England and have over £23,000 in capital you'll be assessed as being able to meet the full cost of your care. If you live in other parts of the UK, the following amounts of capital apply:

in Scotland – £22,500
in Wales – £22,000
in Northern Ireland – £23,000

Why the different numbers – 'cos rather than somebody has made a job out of coming up with the number, we have 4 people who've managed to make a job! Maybe if we had the same rules across the UK; taxes would be less, and/or the government would have more money to spend on stuff we want paying for.

But there are 4 different governmnets for easch place, and all have different rules.

With care home fees, you can pay a lot for fancy wallpaper and mirrors, yet the staff and management can be crap, where as a basic home, may employ happy careing staff.

Also have a look at the care quality commisions website for reports on homes,available free on the net or by post.

But there are 4 different governmnets for easch place, and all have different rules

And that is what I was complaining about – they've managed to create whole departments just to manage this stuff.

And there aren't 4 'governments' really – there is the UK and then the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies – notice anything missing there? Yes, the one that pays the bill for the others!

I hope I never reach the age that I need a care home.

You mean the scottish government that bankrolls England? Net flow of money over the last decade or so is Scotland to England

isnt that drum getting a little worn out TJ?

I'll just continue to correct the misapprehension that England bankrolls Scotland. Its a dull old canard that gets trotted out all the time and its still wrong

Yeah right, ok TJ lets see any actual evidence?

br its been debated and proven many times. The amount that the block grant is over the amount of tax revenue is the same as the amount of money raised from north sea oil in scottish waters. Then there is the electricity exports form Scotland to England.

Many folk have analysed the figures and get whatever result they want but if you include north sea oil then at the moment Scotland is a net contribute to the Uk by a small amount. In the past it has been much larger.

Under the barnett formula Scotland gets a smaller and smaller % of the UK cake each year.

Hmm, so no link to evidence?

And how do you pay for the higher-percentage of public sector jobs up there too? And so Scotland should get a smaller percentage of the 'cake', until its somewhere near 100%, as opposed to:

In actual monetary figures for 2006/7, this will work out as (per person):

England £7,121 – 97%
Scotland £8,623 – 117%
Wales £8,139 – 111%
Northern Ireland £9,385 – 127%

And then when you look in detail even at the England figures, you find that its London and the SE that carries the lot of you!

North East £8,177 – 111% of UK average identifiable expenditure
North West £7,798 – 106%
Yorkshire and Humberside £7,188 – 98%
East Midlands £6,491 – 88%
West Midlands £7,065 – 96%
Eastern £6,144 – 83%
London £8,404 – 114%
South East £6,304 – 86%
South West £6,677 – 91%

simple – that is a rubbish comparison in many ways – for example all the government spending the south east gets in terms of Whitehall and quangos is not included. If you take total government spend and divide by head of population it shows the south east as the subsidy junkies and if you add north sea oil revenue to Scotland tax take you get a larger sum than scottish spending as of now.

reference?

Can't be arsed as there is no decent independent sums for a generation. The oil one is easy to see if you want to. The other about total government spend is much harder to show.

Every commentator from one side or the other shows bias.

Check McCrone report for examples of fiddling the figures.

Well, the bennies of the falklands better get some serious infrastucture.
I'm talking gold public toilets.

Epic fail TJ

Actually TJ is right on this one. Today N Sea oil revenues roughly balance government subsidy. If Scotland were to become independent and keep its oil revenues it could survive, at least for a short period, whilst it either cut public expenditure or found a way of increasing private sector tax take before the oil runs out.

If the scots hadnt taken over english banks and then failed ,and then expected the rest of us to bail them out and pay them their bonuses for screwing up.

still waiting TJ

I am involved in the care home industry and it is a free for all regarding fees and annual uplifts. The strength of your negotiating position will depend on the number of empty beds in the home and the amount in comparable nearby homes. Some homes are still trading full but nationally ave occ has fallen 3-4% in the last 2 years and many homes are gagging for new placements so you may be in a position to say to the owner "sorry, sod off" and if she doesn't want to move it will be a blinking competition. £2,900 pcm / £669 per week is quite high and should mean that either she has high / above average care needs or she is in one of the more affluent areas of the country. Most local authorities pay £475 – £600 per week for nursing care of which £106 is paid by NHS irrespective of private resources. If she is paying £669 per week for non nursing 'resi' care then she must be somewhere v luxurious.

I was quite taken by the words above noting that for captial between 14 and 23k it will be assessed as generating an income of £1/wk for every £250 of savings.

Or put another way £61.54 pa on £250 capital (23% annual interest, compounded weekly!)

Stone me, I fancy a little bit of that investment!