If you are still struggling to get to grips with the recent Care and Support White Paper and what it means for you, these Frequently Asked Questions could help.
The Care and Support White Paper and Progress Report on Funding FAQs
What changes is the Government making to the current care system?
The White Paper highlights a number of key changes to the adult social care system. However, two of the most notable announcements are the introduction of Universal Deferred Payments and a national minimum eligibility criteria. The introduction of universal deferred payments will mean that in the future all local authorities will allow you to put off paying for residential care, usually until a house is sold or a person dies. At the moment this option is only available in some areas of the country.
The national minimum eligibility criteria will mean that the same assessments are applied across the country to test whether someone needs care. It is hoped this will iron out the current problems of varying levels of care and people having to undergo reassessment if they move house.
The Government has also promised:
– A new national website with clear information on what care is available.
– Local authorities will be encouraged to “radically improve” their online
information and support services through a £32.5 million start-up fund.
– More apprenticeships for care workers.
– £200 million to be spent on special housing for older and disabled people.
When are these changes happening?
Both universal deferred payments and the national eligibility criteria are scheduled for April 2015. However, there are a number of issues around the Universal Deferred Payments which the Government will need to address ahead of its introduction. The Government are therefore working with local government representative bodies to form the basis of such an offer.
My father may need to go into a home in the next year or so. Will he have to sell his house to pay for it?
The universal deferred payments policy is intended to ensure no-one has to sell their home in their lifetime to pay for their residential care. But if your father goes into a home before April 2015 and your local authority doesn’t offer deferred payments, then if he has assets of £23,250 or more he would have to bear the entire cost himself. There would be a 12-week period when the value of his house would not be included in the means test, but when that time is up, it would be.
If I choose to defer payments on the care of a loved one in a home, will I have to pay interest?
If it’s after April 2015, yes. At the moment local authorities aren’t allowed to charge interest on deferred payments. But the Government has said that under the universal deferred payments scheme, interest will be charged so that local authorities don’t end up out of pocket. The rate has yet to be decided.
I’ve heard talk about a ‘cap’ on the amount of money anyone should be expected to pay for their care. Is that happening?
Not at the moment. Setting a limit, or ‘cap’, on how much you should have to pay for care was one of the recommendations of the recent Dilnot Report into how care should be funded. The Government says it agrees with the idea but will need to find a way of paying for it.
What about the threshold for means-testing? Is that being changed?
Again, not at the moment. Raising the threshold at which people lose funding support, from the current £23,250, was another recommendation of the Dilnot report, which suggested putting it up to £100,000. The Government has said it supports the idea of raising the threshold, but has to decide how that would be paid for. Adopting all the recommendations of the report would cost the treasury £2.2 billion in 2015/16 – an amount that would rise in the future.
When will a decision be made on whether to introduce more funding reforms – such as the ‘cap’?
There will be a Spending Review in late 2013/early 2014 when the Government will decide whether to go ahead with a funding cap and/or an extended means threshold.
I have a parent in a residential home who is footing the bill for their care. If a ‘cap’ is introduced in the future, will the amount he has already paid count towards it?
The Government has acknowledged this is an issue. The options are to either take into account money that people have already paid and put that towards the cap or to simply start at zero from when the scheme is implemented. The recent White Paper says the latter path, while it may seem unfair to people who have already paid large sums of money, would avoid “significant bureaucratic work”. A decision on this has yet to be reached.
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