Are You Planning Ahead For Long Term Care

Are You Planning Ahead For Long Term Care

November 03, 2015

Planning ahead is essential to ensure the best quality care is available for you or your elderly relative.

Good quality home care is now in high demand across Sussex and the south east, so it’s prudent to set aside funds to ensure you can get the best.

Ideally making plans 10 or even 20 years earlier will make it a lot easier to select the best care available at the time it’s needed. However, for many people, finding funds remains an immediate and pressing issue.

Care is essential expenditure

Ronnie Chatterton-Sim from Coastal Homecare in Worthing explains: “The cost of quality home care is easily affordable if funding plans are made well in advance. In fact it’s a good idea to apply the same principles that we all use when setting aside money for essentials such as housing, cars and pensions because paying for care in later life is an equally essential expenditure for most people.”

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) says state benefits may provide some help with funding, but this may not be enough for the full cost of long term care. So most people should also consider some form of long term care insurance.

The ABI recommends making contact with The Society of Later Life Advisers http://societyoflaterlifeadvisers.co.uk/what-we-do/ who will help you find an independent adviser to guide you through all the options. An adviser will help you consider how to make best use of any savings and investments or equity release on your property. They can also help you identify which state benefits you may be entitled to. Such advice may come at a small cost but it removes the hassle of doing it yourself.

Long term care options

There’s also useful information from the free and impartial Money Advice Service (MAS) https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/self-funding-your-long-term-care-your-options. Among the many self-funding options MAS outlines are immediate need care fee payment plans. They are a type of annuity that provides a regular income in exchange for an upfront lump sum. They’re also known as immediate care plans or immediate needs annuities.

Such plans may be suitable if your Mum or Dad is already receiving care at home. It provides you with the peace of mind that there is a regular income for life that can be used towards care costs, whatever happens.

Friendly and attentive carers

Funding quality home care may involve a significant long term outlay because the quality of care depends very much on a provider being able to employ staff who are well-trained, diligent, friendly and flexible.

Planning ahead therefore ensures the funding is available so that you, or your relative, can enjoy a high standard of care in the comfort of your own home.