Care fee planning within the UK is of pivotal importance for individuals and families preparing for potential long-term care requirements, particularly those concerning the elderly or individuals with disabilities.

Whilst many incoming governments in the UK have promised to end the ‘Crisis of Adult Social Care’, the reality is that there remain significant costs involved, which can very quickly swallow the entire assets of those who are not prepared.

What are the costs?

We’ll go into all of the aspects in more depth in future posts, but if you are needing care provision your local authority will carry out a means test to determine your ability to pay for your care.

At the time of writing, if you have capital of £23,250 or over you will need to pay for your care in full. With assets below this, you will receive support from the local authority towards the cost of your care, but this is incremental passed on the level of your capital.

With the average monthly cost of living in a residential care home in the UK being £3290 and a nursing home £4160 (carehome.co.uk, 2023), the costs are significant and without careful planning even those who have built up significant assets over their lives can see these dwindle quite rapidly.

How can I protect myself?

In this upcoming series, we will look at the world of Adult Social Care and the associated costs in detail, covering all aspects from the types of care available and assessing individual needs, through the legislation governing payment of care fees, financial assessments, to the benefits of planning ahead and the strategies available to enable you to best protect yourself against such potential future costs.

If you are in any way concerned about the impact the costs of future care fees could have on your assets, we cannot stress enough how important it is to seek professional advice.

There are many ways in which you can protect your assets against the cost of future care fees, and our experts are able to look at your individual circumstances and identify tailored solutions to do just this.