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Self-funded social care for older people: an analysis of eligibility, variations and future projections
- Author:
- FORDER Julien
- Publisher:
- Commission for Social Care Inspection
- Publication year:
- 2007
- Pagination:
- 36p.
- Place of publication:
- London
People self-fund their social care for a number of reasons. Some people simply choose not to seek help from the public sector, perhaps relying on family or other informal care. Those people that do approach the public authorities – usually their local council – will normally only receive publicly-funded support if they are, first sufficiently dependent and, second, have income and assets below certain limits. People who are not eligible on these financial and needs tests will need to make their own decisions about care and self-fund any care they wish to use. Self-funders are usually entitled to the set of universal care-related benefits such as Attendance Allowance if they pass a (differently-administered) need test, regardless of their wealth, but the amount of benefit in most cases falls significantly below the costs of care that are required. Furthermore, in theory all people are entitled to an assessment of their need from their council (as distinct from any care or support package), although this does not always happen in practice.
The impact of a tightening fiscal situation on social care for older people
- Authors:
- FORDER Julien, FERNANDEZ Jose-Luis
- Publisher:
- Personal Social Services Research Unit
- Publication year:
- 2010
- Pagination:
- 8p.
- Place of publication:
- Canterbury
The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of a reduction in funding for care. In the current difficult fiscal climate, a cut in funding for social care seems likely. This paper illustrates the consequences of a reduction in the budget available to fund social care for older people. In particular, it looks at the effects of a 6.7% per annum real terms reduction in the total budget available for social care in the 2 years after 2010/11 (the reduced-budget scenario). It also considers an alternative scenario where funding is assumed to increase sufficiently to allow the current need eligibility thresholds and financial threshold to remain unchanged (the demand-led scenario). The reduced-budget scenario results in net public expenditure falling to around 80% of the level required in the demand-led scenario in 2012/13. The total number of older people that would be state-supported would fall by nearly one half of the level of the demand-led case. The reduction would mostly affect people receiving home care services rather than residential care because they tend to have less severe needs and therefore are more likely to be affected by an increased needs eligibility threshold. Unmet need as measured in the model would nearly double in the reduced budget case.