Pensioners face cash squeeze as care bills soar to £560 a week

CARE home fees in Scotland have hit a record level of almost £30,000 a year, forcing older people to sell their homes and raid their savings to pay them.

A new report puts the annual costs at £29,172 on average, having leapt by more than £3,000 during the past five years alone.

That means the average weekly amount people have to pay is now £561, which means living in a care home is significantly more expensive than the annual boarding fees at Fettes College, alma mater of ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

While the UK Government has pledged to bring in a cap on care home fees in 2020, the Scottish Government has no such plan.

With no limit on what can be charged, many elderly people are taking out ‘pay when you die’ loans from councils in order to retain their family home.

Those with only £26,250 in assets, including the value of their house, are required to be ‘self-funders’ who pay for their own care.

For this generation of middleclass Scots, even when they receive the SNP’s flagship free personal and nursing care payments, the annual cost still stands at more than £16,000.

Keith Robson, director of charity services for Age Scotland, said: ‘The increasing costs of care are a worry for older people and their families.

‘Though the shortfall between cost and income will be partially covered by free personal nursing care payments, this will still leave many people worried about their savings.

‘Age Scotland strongly recommends that everyone over the age of 50 should be looking at options for how to cover the costs of care by planning fully for your retirement.’

The report from agency Prestige Nursing and Care shows fees in Scotland are up an inflation-busting 3.5 per cent on last year. While the average pensioner’s income is £14,248 a year, living in a care home costs more than twice that.

It is almost £6,000 more expensive than the fees to send a prep school pupil to board at Fettes College in Edinburgh.

Free personal care and free nursing care can help to cut the cost in Scotland, but not everyone is eligible for either or both.

Even with £171 a week from the state to cover personal care and £78 a week for nursing care, self-funders have to meet the remaining ‘hotel cost’ of their accommodation themselves.

For those receiving both state payments, the bill is £16,224, with a survey last year of children of Scots in care homes finding that nearly one in seven had sold their family home to meet the cost.

Half of those surveyed by insur- ance firm LV said their parents had used their pensions and almost a third said they had raided their savings.

Jonathan Bruce, managing director of Prestige Nursing and Care, said: ‘The UK’s ageing population means many with longer-term conditions will require care of some sort.

‘But for many, the widening gap between costs and income will make it difficult to receive the amount and quality of care they require without substantial savings to fall back on.’

The Scottish Government said it is exploring ways to make charges for social care fairer.

Following changes this year, the NHS and councils are jointly responsible for patients’ health and care needs through health and social care partnerships. A Government spokesman said: ‘We are providing more than £500million additional funding over three years to help health and social care partnerships establish new ways of working, and investing a further £250million per year to protect and grow social care services.’

‘Increasing costs are a worry’