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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.