Why is it that the social care reforms allow people who are more well off to keep 90% of their wealth, when many people like myself struggled to buy (albeit a terraced house) but we will have to more or less lose the lot!

We should all be given the same help!

I hope that the Lords are able to change this after discussion to make it more fair!

Boris did say that we shouldn't have to sell our homes but I am aware that we can never trust a politician!

What message is this going to give people who want to buy a house in the future?

Yes Boris did say that, he agreed with Starmer he said it,it's the little addendum they don't mention, won't have to sell your house whilst your alive.

There are so many traps, even if you give substantial sums of money or property to your kids (or anyone else) ten or more years before you need care, it can be looked on as deliberate deprivation.

The Government clearly state that you currently don't have to sell your property, however this is a play on words, there is the deferred payment scheme whereby your care costs plus interest are put as a charge against your property.

Yes indeed DD, crooked words from a crooked government.

I thought I'd share this here but I had posted it separately!

I often want to go back to a post that I want to add a reply too but then I forget where it is!





Thank you for contacting me about the Government’s decision to amend the cap on lifetime contributions to social care costs.

This amendment, tabled by the Government as part of the Health and Care Bill, excludes means-tested council support payments from the lifetime limit on costs. This means that only the payments people make from their own pocket - not those from councils - would count towards the cap.

I voted against the amendment. In my view, it is a regressive measure that creates a north-south divide and leaves the poorest pensioners having to pay even more, something Sir Andrew Dilnot – who proposed the cap – explicitly ruled out because it was so unfair.

The Government said the change is necessary to ensure its reforms represent “a sustainable package from a financial perspective”. Yet the King’s Fund independent health think tank said the cap will leave people with low levels of wealth exposed to “very high care costs”.

Concerns have been raised, rightly in my opinion, that the change will leave people with moderate assets living in poorer areas forced to sell their home to pay for their care, while wealthier people from richer parts of the country will be protected.

While I joined my Opposition colleagues in voting against the amendment to the social care cap, it passed with the support of Government MPs.

The Government has refused to honour its 2019 manifesto commitment that the “prerequisite of any solution will be a guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it”. Instead – after a decade of cuts to local government and £8 billion lost from adult social care budgets – Ministers have legislated for tax rises to pay for reforms to the sector. This not only breaks the Government’s 2019 promise not to raise taxes, but it will hit working people hard. And in my view, the proposals will do nothing to improve the quality or provision of care.

Many care providers are at immediate risk of closing due to financial pressures and chronic staff shortages. Yet at the Autumn Budget and Spending Review in October, the Chancellor offered no direct funding for social care and there was no detailed plan for the workforce.

People in our constituency and across the country deserve better. I support a 10-year plan of investment and reform that will empower care users, improve social care and get better value for taxpayers.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this important issue.

Kind regards

Mick Whitley MP
Member of Parliament for Birkenhead

So what are the payments from the council used for?



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Thanks mikeeb

I did wonder about this myself: So what are the payments from the council used for?

Maybe I could ask Mick Whitley! I'll let you know what he says!

Thanks for the info re previous posts

Maybe better to ask your local Councillor as it is a council matter.

I went through all the local and NHS care funding recently and have near enough forgotten most of it.

The Council fund your care if you have less than £23,250, I assume that funding is capped. There is a taper above £23,250.

I think Council funding is excluded from income because otherwise it would lift you up above the threshold for assistance, which would be a self-contradiction.

Care for medical reasons is free but that is funded through the NHS.

There is a difference between non-hospitalised convalescence care and continuing care (or similar names), There is a funding time limit for NHS funded convalescence of six weeks. There is a cap on what the NHS pay for convalescence, I think the Council can top this up but most Councils don't.

The general pattern is that the Council try to get you to live at home with assistance and aids (support package) rather than have you in a care home. If you are above the threshold and you are self-funding the Council at-home care rates are surprisingly reasonable but soon add up (I have a copy of the charges somewhere if you want me to dig them up). There is a massive shortage of at-home (pop-in) carers despite the numerous companies in Wirral, so people are sometimes stuck in care homes waiting for their home support package to be put in place.

The basic tests to see if you are capable of living at home with pop-in assistance rather than being in a care home is to ensure you are unlikely to injure yourself and that you can use the toilet/commode unaided (even if it is with severe difficulty)- virtually everything else is irrelevant as there are workarounds.