In February, the Society of Later Life Advisers (SOLLA) held their first conference called ‘The Value of Advice.' Joint chair Tish Hanifan talks to Fiona Murphy about long term care advice and the impact of the forthcoming care cap
In addition, the care homes and domiciliary services in the past haven’t known what financial services can offer. The public themselves have a poor understanding of financial advice and I am sympathetic but it is the case that the public don’t hold financial services in great regard.
Also it’s often a gradual transition to needing care, and one financial service needs to address more. If someone begins to have increasing care needs, they’ve probably covered it in some way. They need a little bit of help initially e.g. with the gardening and the amount of help they need increases over time and they don’t think of themselves in the care system.
What impact do you think the cap will have?
It is going to give a limit to how much people will have to spend. No-one can say it’s not a good thing. I’m deliberately not using the word ‘clarity’ because I’m worried we’re not going to get clarity.
The negative thing is I’ve been working in this area of advising older people for 17 years and I’ve seen quite a few government pronouncements on care. In the interim before they’ve taken effect, I’ve seen the general public have only got the headline bit. The public may think there is a limit on how much they pay for their care.
Unless they get some clear information and advice, they won’t drill down to the projections for how long people live in care and how much the cost of care is including accommodation and top-ups. Most of them will have to be in care for longer than the average projection of how long people live. It’s how we position this message.
If most people believe they won’t have to sell their homes or dig deep into their savings, they will be mistaken. We’ve got a key opportunity to keep spreading this message and if we do so, we’re going to do a good service for clients.
Financial advisers have to keep introducing these concepts throughout the retirement planning stage. If you see someone in their 50s for pension planning, you have to start gradually introducing that concept of ‘if you need care.’ They will possibly say: ‘I’ve heard about that £75,000 cap, it’s a lot of money but it is manageable.” That allows you to say it isn’t as simple as that. You need to engage with people at the earliest opportunity without doing a hard sell.
