Families continue to face the horrendous prospect of spending their entire lifetime savings and property equity if they need to go into a long-term residential or nursing care home in their final years. The crisis in social care should have been solved by now, but instead it drags on and on.
Because nobody in power has knuckled down and fixed this problem, ordinary people are losing more and more money. Yet it’s not just the fault of politicians. We all need to grow up over this issue.
Social care is a total mess and it terrifies both the Conservative Party and Labour Party, who are keeping their heads down and hoping the problem will go away.
It won’t, of course. By sticking their heads in the sand, politicians will only create more uncertainty and misery.
In 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to fix this issue, to avoid the risk of people spending every penny they ever had on care.
He announced a new £86,000 cap on the amount anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care over their lifetime.
The cap was supposed to come into force last month but has been put on ice and may never happen.
October was also supposed to see desperately needed increases in means-tested thresholds for local authority support.
In England, anyone with assets worth more than the upper capital limit £23,250 must meet all of their personal long-term care costs. They only get full support once assets fall below the lower capital limit of £14,250.
These two thresholds are incredibly low. Especially since they include the value of your home. They were due to rise to £100,000 and £20,000 last month, but didn’t.
The upper and lower capital limits have not increased for an incredible 13 years. They would be 50 percent higher today if they had kept pace with inflation. It’s yet another nasty case of fiscal drag.
Johnson’s social care reforms were panned as a “dementia tax”. That was always ridiculous because while far from perfect, they were certainly better than the current situation.
The cost of doing nothing instead has been much higher.
The system is in “paralysis” leaving families with no idea how to plan for long-term care costs in later life, according to the newly published 2023 Care Report by retirement and later life specialists Just Group.
The study found that just one in eight over-45s who have helped find a loved one a care home think the social care system is fit for purpose, with three-quarters saying the process was “stressful”, said Stephen Lowe, group communications director at Just.
He said: “Our report is called ‘No Policy, No Planning’ because that sums up the position among both policymakers and the public.”
Britons are failing to act ahead as three in four said they “had not thought about care, planned for it or spoken to children about it”, Lowe said. “The figure is almost as high among over-75s.”
Too many are putting off making plans until the system is reformed but nobody knows when that will happen.
READ MORE: Army of unpaid social carers equal to more than four million jobs
Many wrongly think care costs are capped and either do not realise there is an upper capital limit or wrongly assume it is much higher, Lowe added. “It’s hard for people to plan when they are confused about what support the state will provide and what responsibilities they are expected to shoulder themselves.”
He called for social care to be “front and centre” in next year’s general election, echoing earlier calls by Steven Cameron, pensions director at insurer Aegon.
Aegon’s research shows that only one in four working people have factored social care expenses into their retirement plans, leaving many dangerously exposed.
“As we live longer more will face this expense, which can have a huge impact on our later life finances,” Cameron said.
The £86,000 care cap would have removed the risk of those needing care over many years seeing their lifetime savings wiped out, Cameron added. “Individuals would still pay for daily living costs and top-ups if they chose more expensive care facilities.”
He said the big political parties must explain what they will do if elected next year. I’m not holding my breath, though. The shadow of the dementia tax furore hangs over them. It hangs over millions of families, too.
