How you find your way through funding for care at home?
Find your way through the care funding maze – download your free Guide to Funding Care
Trying to understand how funding for care at home works, whether you might be eligible for local authority or NHS support, and how much it costs if you are paying for it yourself can be very confusing.
The process involves a range of factors, including your financial situation, the type of care needed, and where you live, which can vary across different regions. Local authority funding eligibility is often based on a means test, while NHS support may depend on your health needs and whether you qualify for continuing healthcare funding.
On top of this, if you're looking at private care options, you'll need to consider the long-term financial impact and whether it aligns with your budget. Understanding these complexities can feel like navigating a maze, and without the right guidance, it's easy to feel uncertain about where to turn next.
However, it's crucial to know that there are options and resources available to help you make sense of the different funding for care at home, so you can make informed decisions about your care or the care of a loved one.
Below you'll discover the main ways in which care is funded so you know where to start.
Source #1: Local authority funding
Local authorities generally apply two criteria when assessing whether they will fund somebody's care. The first is a test of whether your need for care qualifies and the second is a financial assessment of the extent to which you will be required to contribute to the cost of your care. If you are assessed as not needing to contribute financially to the cost of your care, your local authority would fund the full cost.
Source #2: Self-funding
If you have income and assets of more than a specified amount, you'd be expected to fund 100% of the costs of your care. The level of savings and assets is currently set at £23,250 in England and Northern Ireland. There are different thresholds in Wales and Scotland.
Source #3: Local authority funding with a personal contribution
In between the two situations above, there is another alternative. When you have a level of assets below £23,250, i.e. under the threshold, then you may be required to contribute a defined amount towards the cost of your care with the local authority covering the remainder.
Source #4: Other primary sources of funding
If you have particularly complex healthcare needs, you could qualify for funding from the NHS Continuing Health Care (CHC) fund. If you have particularly complex mental health needs and have been 'sectioned' (which means detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act), you could receive funding of all of your care costs under Section 117 of the same Act.
So where do I start?
A good starting point is to contact your local authority's Adult Social Care team to ask for an assessment and to talk to them about what help and support you need, funding options and what care providers are in your area. They can help establish whether you would qualify for local authority support and whether they would provide any funding for your care and support.
For further insight into how much you'd have to fund yourself, how to avoid surprise additional costs from providers and other benefits or allowances that may be available, download your Guide to Funding Care at Home.
If you'd like to chat to us about how support at home can help you or a loved one then do get in touch using the details below.
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