By Ben Marquand The Health and Social Care Bill will soon receive Royal Assent, but there are...
By Ben Marquand
The Health and Social Care Bill will soon receive Royal Assent, but there are still a number of issues that could cause problems for the long term care industry according to a report from the Nursing Home Fees Agency.
The report suggests that despite its claims, the Government will provide little financial support for elderly people needing care. It also appears that the Bill may actually serve to further complicate the funding system, because it is still unclear how IFAs should be advising their clients with regards to funding for long term care.
Phillip Spiers, partner in the Nursing Home Fees Agency, said: "The Bill has been rushed through Parliament, and has not really made any improvements to the long term care of old people. It has actually complicated the system even more."
The Bill states that the value of people's property will be disregarded for the first three months of care when people enter care homes permanently after 9 April 2001. However, if people have other capital worth over £18,500 then they will have to meet the full cost of their care and cannot benefit from this temporary disregard.
Another problem is that although the Social Services means test limit will increase to £18,500, the DSS Income Support threshold will remain at £16,000. This discrepancy could have a number of different effects depending on people's individual circumstances, such as whether people will be able to retain their attendance allowance if they cannot sell their property within a short space of time after moving into care.
There are also concerns that the definition of nursing care in the Bill still does not clearly define nursing care, which is causing problems for insurance providers because they cannot adjust their plans until the definition is clarified. Sandy Johnstone, long term care strategy manager at Norwich Union, said: "The Bill will have a big effect on insurers because customers are going to need to know how much of a cut there will be in the cost of long term care insurance. We are going to have to assess the charges for nursing care and reconstruct our price lists around the change in costs. The Government has said that it will issue guidelines in May, but it takes more than a few days to redo the pricing structure."
Paul Bennett, marketing manager at PPP lifetime care, said: "The problem at the moment is that we cannot predict who will be helped by it.
So, for example, if someone has a stroke they may benefit from it, but if someone is suffering from Alzheimer's they may not need a lot of nursing care, but could need more personal care."
"It is a situation that the industry has faced for the last five years, and it has undoubtedly affected sales in the market. As soon as we get clarity it will be easier to sell," said Bennett.
