Newline Care Home - Paying for care
What care fees are charged and how they are funded varies from person to person and is dependant on the personal circumstances of the individual. So please feel free to contact us to discuss our care fees and how you might pay for them.
If you believe you will require financial assistance to pay for your care fees then your local authority will carry out an assessment of your care needs to confirm your suitability to a residential care home. They will then carry out a financial assessment to confirm if your eligibility for funding and if so at what level.
If you expect to pay for the care fees yourself i.e. self funding you are not required to have a medical or financial assessment from the local authority. We will simply carry out an assessment of your needs to ensure Newline Care Home is suited to your needs.
How an individual entitlement to funding is calculated is often quite complex. This is a simplified summary of how the financial assessment will be carried out.
Capital and Your Financial Assessment
If your capital is less than the upper assets limit £23,250 in England, you should receive some financial help from your local authority but will usually be expected to contribute to care-home fees.
Assets below a lower limit £14,250 in England are ignored. You will usually pay £1 a week for each £250 of assets between the lower and upper limits. It is also likely that you will have to pay your occupational and state pension to the council, plus any benefits you are entitled to. The only income you can keep is £22.30 a week for personal expenses.
Limit
Upper limit
Mid-range
Lower limit
Amount
£23,250
£14,250 to
£23,250
£14,250
Capital affected by your financial assessment
You'll have to pay for the cost of your care
Capital between these amounts is calculated as providing an income of £1 per week for every £250 of capital
Capital below this level doesn’t count in the assessment
Whatever your capital, if your weekly income is more than the total of your care home fees plus £22.30 you'll have to pay the full cost of care yourself.
Only capital and income in your name counts when it comes to your financial assessment. Joint savings and capital are assumed to be equally shared between the owners, so only half will count as yours.
If you and your partner are both moving into a home, you'll be assessed individually. This means the capital limits in the table above apply to each of you separately - not both together.
Your Home and Your Financial Assessment
Your home won't be counted as capital if any of the following people still live there:
- your husband, wife, civil partner or someone you live with as a partner
- a close relative who is aged 60 or over, or incapacitated
- a child (including adopted children) under 18
- an ex-husband, ex-wife, ex-civil partner or ex-partner, if they are a single parent
Twelve week disregard
If your house is your main asset and your savings and investments are below the upper assets limit you may not have to pay for your own care home place immediately. If you have been assessed as requiring a permanent place and your income doesn’t cover the fees, the local authority should disregard the value of your home for the first 12 weeks of your care and help with payment as if you did not own your home.
Deferred Payments
After 12 weeks, local authorities run ‘deferred payment schemes’, where they can pay towards your care home fees until the sale of your house, provided your savings are below the upper asset limit and you own your property. When you sell your house or if you die, they claim back the outstanding cost of this interest–free loan from the sale of your house.