The Local Authority will use a financial assessment to understand your means but as it stands will only pay for your care needs if you are deemed to have insufficient funds to pay for the care costs yourself. The financial assessment looks at your income such as benefits and pension and also your capital such as savings, property and investments. If you are deemed to have sufficient funds, then you will be classed as a self-funder and will be expected to fund care fess yourself.

As it stands the Local Authority will pay for the full cost of care if your capital is less than £14,250 and will contribute to care costs if the capital is between £14,250 and £23,250 but if your capital is more than the £23,250 threshold then you will be deemed a self-funder and the local Authority will not contribute to your care costs.

If you qualify for local authority funding, you will still only receive the published amount available for care. If you would like to receive care from a specific care provider that is more expensive than the local authority is willing to pay then you can chose to pay additional sums to ‘top up’ this amount. These top up payments are often from family members and therefore called ‘third party top ups’ and are becoming increasingly common as people want to choose their own care options.

For further information on Local Authority Funding please use this guide from Symponia http://www.symponia.co.uk/sites/clubsymponia/files/library/CS_LAF_Care-at-home.pdf

Source Used: Symponia (symponia.co.uk)