Long-term care costs are high and industry trends suggest fees will continue to rise.
Care at home
Most of us would like to stay in our own homes – and local authorities try to enable this for as long as possible.
The average cost of home care is £17.30 an hour.1 So just two hours of daily home care a could amount to more than £12,600 a year – not taking account of higher rates for weekends and public holidays. Live-in care can start at £40,000 a year.
If 24-hour care is required at home, costs could rise to more than £150,000 a year based on the above hourly rate. In these circumstances, residential care is usually more cost-effective.
Residential care
The cost of residential care can vary hugely by location and depending on whether an individual requires nursing or not. The table below shows average regional weekly care home costs around the UK for 2009/10 – with and without nursing care.
On average an individual can expect to pay around £24,908 a year for a residential care home, rising to over £34,000 if nursing is required.2
Other costs
Remember too that these are only the costs of residency and nursing. Costs that may still need to be met on top of a care home’s bill might include:
- Clothing, toiletries and personal items
- Trips and treats
- Telephone calls
If care is fully funded by the local authority, you are allowed to retain a Personal Expense Allowance to cover items like these. When looking for a home it is important to ascertain what is included in the fees and what isn’t.
People are living longer
The costs can be end up being greater than originally anticipated. While the average life expectancy for a self-funder going into long term care is around 2 and a half years, this allows for severely sick and disabled people requiring nursing care admitted straight from hospital and therefore receiving state funding.
If we remove this group of care residents from the statistics, our experience suggests that the average stay in a care home is actually more like 4 years, with a 1 in 8 chance of living over 7 years.
Some of our clients are still going strong 10 years after taking out a plan with us!