Posted: Friday, 4 January 2019 @ 13:43
The new Care Act will come into force in April 2016 and one of its key aspects is there is a cap on how much self-funders can be required to pay. It is set at £72,000 and there will also be changes to the mean theft threshold, which will rise from the current £23,250 to £118,000 for residential care.
I believe that the new legislation is going to lead to a series of possible financial disputes between local authorities and users of the service.
It is well known from the legislation that not all expenditure counts towards the cap. Crucially, not all expenditure counts. For both residential and home care, any money spent will only count towards the cap if the person needing care had eligible needs – and at local authority rates, rather what you actually spend.
For residential care, hotel costs (food and accommodation) is set at £12,000 a year and excluded from the cap.
Fundamentally, there is a tension between the local authorities under financial pressure with their desire to minimise care costs, against the desperate wishes of families to protect their financial assets.
The stakes are high.
This poses logistical difficulties for families, and local authorities. At the moment, families according to research referred to in the Telegraph (2013) tend not to press the detailed financial assessments because they perceive that they will not make the means test and will have to pay. The difficulty with the cap, is that now everyone will need a full assessment in order to see who will benefit.
This will lead to more assesments and more arguments. At a time when the government is desperately trying to manage costs this may lead to local authorities having to send in more resources.