TheTelegraph – Valuing Care

The Telegraph – Care Costs could decimate your assets

Care costs threaten to decimate the wealth that elderly people have spent their lives accumulating, but what are the options available to keep costs down?

According to one report the average weekly fee for council registered carers is £396, while it rises to a staggering £759 for IFAs; 92% higher. All of this embroiled against a backdrop of multi-million pounds dividends for investors and huge director salaries.

Such highly inflated fees give rise to one very important question; why aren’t foster care costs subject to the same level of scrutiny as other social care costs? Care costs threaten to decimate the wealth that elderly people have spent their lives accumulating, but what are the options available to keep costs down?

The price of care has risen in recent years, thanks to a combination of short supply, care home operators struggling financially, and cuts to local authority budgets. An individual in need of nursing care can now expect to pay over £50,000 a year on average, if they have income and assets that exceed the £23,250 threshold above which care has to be self-funded.

According to healthcare research firm Lang & Buisson, the average fee for self-funded nursing care – which includes medical care from registered nurses – is £1,000 a week.

James Connington | 3 April 2018 | Subscription Required

03/04/2018Aaron ReedNews, The Telegraphcare, carecosts, TheTelegraph

The Telegraph – ‘Care home charged £2,000 for nursing my mother – after she’d died’

Grieving families whose loved ones die in a care home are being charged after-death fees, often totalling several thousands of pounds.

The charges, which are ubiquitous across the industry, are ostensibly to cover lost income while rooms are cleared out and cleaned before another resident can move in.

10 February 2018 | Subscription Required

10/02/2018Aaron ReedNews, The Telegraphcare, carecosts, TheTelegraph

The Telegraph – Nursing home billed me £600,000 – for what?

One 95 year-old nursing home resident has seen her fees rise 129pc, with barely any explanation Dr Edmondson (pictured) calculates that his aunt Eunice will have spent £600,000 on her care home fees over 13 years…

18th January 2014 | Subscription Required

18/01/2018Aaron ReedNews, The Telegraphcare, carecosts, Carehome, TheTelegraph

The Telegraph – The real reason why the middle classes pay 194pc more for care

Middle-class families who have to pay for their own care are not merely subsidising council-funded residents but becoming the sole source of care homes’ profits.

This means that previous calculations of the “self-funder tax” – the difference between fees paid by private residents and fees paid by councils – have been hugely underestimated.

Ray Hart, a director from Valuing Care Ltd, said: “Everyone points to councils’ underfunding of care home places, but the reality is different. The profit motive of these businesses is working its way into the system as well.”

11 February 2017 | Subscription Required

11/02/2017Aaron ReedNews, The Telegraphcare, TheTelegraph