Elderly face paying £140,000 bill before reaching social care cap
ELDERLY people face spending around £140,000 on residential care before they hit the cap on social care costs, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) warned in a report released today.
The sum is almost double the £72,000 figure the cap will be set at when it comes into force in 2016 and could increase to around £250,000 if an individual is in long-term care for 10 years.
This is because the cap only covers the cost of care set at local authority prices and does not include daily living costs such as food and accommodation.
A person entering a home in London aged 85 is expected to reach the cap in around four years and pay around £117,000 whereas a person in the Midlands would face costs of around £170,000 but take seven years to hit the cap.
The IFoA also estimates that just eight per cent of men and 15 per cent of women entering care aged 85 today will live to see the cap.
“Anyone who is expecting that the cap will pay for care is in for a shock,” Thomas Kenny, one of the authors of the IFoA’s report said.
“The cap is there to protect against catastrophic care costs and we estimate that few people entering care aged 85 years will reach it,” he said.