How do you pay for a stay in a nursing home?!
Question:
How do you pay for a stay in a nursing home?
My mother in law needs to go into a nursing home. She owns a flat so it will have to be sold to pay for her care.
Once the flat is sold, will she have to pay weekly/monthly? Someone told us the nursing home will take the total amount (in this case about £80,000) all in one go as soon as the flat is sold, which seems totally unfair!
Answers:
Talk to Social Services.
She will not have to pay out her full cash of £80,000 as soon as her flat is sold.
I retired as a Care Manager in 1995 and part of my job was assessing people's needs. I would do a financial assessment and based on that, the person's contribution to their care would be assessed by the County Treasurers.
Unfortunately I don't know current levels of charges in Nursing Homes (and they vary around the Country anyway) but she would have been assessed to pay a weekly amount until her Capital dropped to a certain level (I think we are now looking at something like £15,000).
I believe that new legislation has been introduced since I retired in which the Health Authority pays a certain percentage of Nursing Home fees which constitutes the nursing element and the resident pays for the care part of the bill (bed and board, help with personal tasks, etc).
Your local Social Services office will help sort it. Find their number under your County Council listing.