On hearing the news yesterday around the changes to social care charging to come into play in 2023, we did a little happy dance assuming that as long as our family members had less than £20,000 they would not be charged for social care. BUT on further reading we discovered that the £20,000 was assets and that social care will still be charging people based on their income.
- “People with less than £20,000 would have to contribute from their income towards their care costs – potentially leaving them with just the £24.90 weekly personal expenses allowance (PEA) – but not from their savings.” (I believe the personal expenses allowance is for people who are in residential care)
For further information please see article in community care Government resurrects cap on care costs plan four years after ditching it | Community Care
So it looks like our family members will be continuing to contribute towards their care as they are now ☹ our happy dance was very short lived!
One thing we can do is make sure that all possible disability related expenses are taken into account when our family members have their financial assessment to ascertain what their contribution will be.
- This is a link to ECC website which tells you what you need to tell them about when having a financial assessment Financial assessment: What you need to tell us – Essex County Council:
- This is a link to the disability related expenses section in the care act guidance Care and support statutory guidance – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- This is the link to disability related expenses guidance which was shared with us by ECC when charges increased significantly a few years ago as the document their practitioners refer to DRE-Practice-Guidance-10.-17-pdf.pdf (essexcarersnetwork.co.uk)
Please take time to read these documents and think about what should be considered as disability related expenses for your family member.
We would really like you our members to let us know about your experience of the financial assessment and what disability related expenses have been included and what have not been allowed which you feel should.