Are You Helping Your Parents With Care?

The current cost of care-homes in North-West Bristol is reaching ‘eye-watering’ proportions. We are not that far off seeing annual £100,000+ costs, we are already there in some specialist dementia care settings. Annual price increases are currently around 10% with local care homes passing on ever rising costs like national insurance rises, national minimum wage increases and the rise in the cost of general insurance.

The abandonment of the proposed Government cap on care costs hasn’t helped, with another Royal Commission on its way promising yet another full review into Social Care in the UK. The results of the review are expected in 2028 with any implementation of the mooted ‘National Care Service’ not until 2036. Let’s not hold our breath on this one.

Much of the emotional strain can fall on you, the adult children, who may be successful professionals in your own right, working full-time and still caring for children of your own. You are not alone in being a stressed-out member of the ‘sandwich generation’!

Such is the stress on the adult children, we are finding many coming to us not just for the clarity of later life financial planning support from a local specialist but also for help as a local guide, signposting to trusted local resources as well as providing that valuable emotional support in our homely office.

As a later life financial planning specialist, we have a complete understanding of the way in which local care homes operate, and the role that money plays. If your parents are selling the family home to fund care and have other investments and savings, it’s well worth taking financial advice to properly explore the options. This is especially true if you are acting as an attorney under a Lasting Power of Attorney where you will have a legal duty make decisions for your parents in their best interests. Naturally, as advisers to self-funding residents we have good relationships with some of the more high-end care homes in the local area, but we can also recommend some of the middle of the range homes too that fit the bill perfectly well.

Also, do not completely disregard setting up care within your own home. It is financially more possible than many may think, and there are some excellent local providers of domiciliary care out there.

We will provide you, as the adult children caring for a parent, with clarity and leadership, even if it means telling you the things you don’t want to hear, but ultimately the solutions that are in your parents’ and perhaps the wider family’s best interest. We will walk with you side by side, providing the authority and gentle hand that local people in this situation desperately seek and value. Delivering advice on who should be paying for care and the all-important ‘how’ and ‘when’.

Harold Stephens is a specialist, later life financial and legal planning specialist – our advisers are SOLLA (Society of Later Life Advisers) Accredited. We help families plan for later life issues such as care planning, inheritance tax, Lasting Power of Attorney and Wills. If you are caring for parents and they have amassed wealth, there are specialist options available that we can recommend to you, to not only fund the care that will give them the dignity in later life they deserve – but also in a very tax efficient way and potentially put a cap on those care costs.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with the office for complimentary initial chat. We can be reached at 50, High Street, Westbury on Trym BS9 3DZ, office@haroldstephens.co.uk or telephone us on 0117 3636 212.