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Spouse liability for a partner's long-term care costs: local variations in policy and practice in the UK
- Authors:
- WRIGHT Fay, THOMPSON Pauline
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 36(7), December 2002, pp.753-764.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Under the 1948 National Assistance Act a husband and a wife are liable to maintain each other and so can be required to contribute towards a spouse's care home costs. A national postal survey of social services finance officers showed that only a minority of local authorities pursue liable spouses. These authorities have often developed individual policies with widely different treatment of capital and income. Discretion is being exercised in the pursuit of liable spouses within these authorities. Social workers do not necessarily bring liable spouses to the attention of finance officers and articulate and knowledgeable spouses can either decline to pay or pay only token amounts. Only the unlucky and ill-informed spouses end up contributing. Such variation in the treatment of spouses is at odds with the development of fairer policies to meet the costs of long-term care.
All my worldly goods: a study of the operation of the 'liable relative rules' when a spouse goes into residential or nursing home care
- Authors:
- THOMPSON Pauline, WRIGHT Fay
- Publisher:
- Age Concern
- Publication year:
- 2000
- Pagination:
- 59p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This research report looks at the effects of the "liable relative" rules relating to the spuses of people in long-term care. This rule allows local authorities and the Department of Social Security to request (and if necessary enforce) payments from spouses if residents in residential or nursing care receive state funding. Currently 11% of individuals in care homes (approximately 50,000 people)are married, of which 33,500 are estimated to be receiving state funding. The research examined current local authority practices by undertaking a postal survey of all local authorities in England, telephone follow-up interviews with selected social services finance officers, and interviews with a small number of spouses of affected by this rule. The research found that there was a wide variation in how this rule was implemented between authorities, and that it was often only the most vulnerable spouses, who through guilt and a lack of information, who ended up paying the most. The recommendations of the report are that it should be legally impossible for the DSS or local authorities to demand payment from the spouse of a person in long-term state-funded residential or nursing care.