Time To Care?

The recent publication of the Government’s Green Paper “Shaping the Future of Care Together” proposes to reform our current social care system in a number of ways. It seeks to change a system which was set up in the 1940’s when life expectancy was much lower than it is today. In the south west in 2007 18.8% of people were aged over 65 or older compared with 16% for England as a whole. It is projected that these percentages will rise to 24% for the south west by 2026.

The Green Paper aims to create a new National Care Service in respect of long-term care funding. This will have a huge impact, amongst other areas of care, on care home fees funding for the elderly.

The Green Paper suggests three ways in which the National Care Service could be funded;

1. By a partnership between the people and the government where the government will fund around a quarter to one third of the cost of the care as a minimum, but for people with higher care needs they may still need to fund the rest out of savings or against properties.

2. By an insurance scheme where people would be asked to contribute towards the cost of their care or

3.By a comprehensive scheme where everybody (regardless of whether you need care or not) has to contribute towards the cost of their care, but in return, care is free.

However, one area the Green paper does not highlight is the fact that care costs can equally be funded by the NHS via individual Primary Care Trusts (PCT’s).

Those who have higher levels of need can access to a completely separate pot of funding provided by the PCT rather than Local Authorities. The difference in this funding is that it is not means-tested. It can make the difference of not selling your home or using your life savings.

The main principle is this:
If a person’s primary need is health care then the full cost of their care should be funded by the Primary Care Trust. This is called NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding. Families should be looking into this type of funding before they even consider social care. A continuing care assessment should legally form part of a multi – disciplinary team meeting, including someone from social care and someone from the primary care trust suitable to assess the needs of a person based on their diagnosis. This principle of partnership in a healthcare scenario is only now evolving out of the Green Paper with regard to social care.

There is now a 16 week consultation period following the publishing of the Green Paper after which the Government will produce a White Paper in 2010.

In the meantime, why wait? NHS continuing healthcare funding is available now for all those who fit the eligibility criteria.

Published 21/07/2009. The author of this article is Asha Beswetherick