Fewer than one in four homeowners are saving for their future care needs, despite more than half fearing they could lose their homes to pay for care in later life, research has found.

A survey commissioned by the Independent Age charity found more than 143,000 older people – more than one-third of the 421,000 currently in residential care – are likely to face costs of £100,000 or more to pay for their care. Such costs have been described as “catastrophic”.

In recent years, the government has proposed introducing a cap to prevent people from having to pay such amounts. However, separate research by Grant Thornton UK LLP, also commissioned by Independent Age, has revealed a cap would fail the majority of older people in care homes.

Instead, in its report, the charity has called on the government to introduce free personal care for everyone.

“Simply put, no one would pay for their care, avoiding up to hundreds of thousands in charges,” said George McNamara, the director of policy and influencing at Independent Age. “Free personal care could be introduced at a similar cost to the government to a cap on care costs.

“It would remove the unfairness in our health and social care systems, whereby someone who has a long-term health condition like cancer gets all of their treatment for free, while someone who develops dementia will be subject to a means test and may end up spending huge amounts on care for the remainder of their life.”

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Free personal care would eliminate costs for people receiving care at home. For those in residential settings, it would reduce costs by more than one-third – leaving them to pay non-care related costs including bed, board and lodging.

The government’s proposal of a cap on care costs, which is expected to feature in the much-awaited social care green paper, has been widely speculated about. The research showed that if the proposed cap were set too high, many older people in residential care would not live long enough to reach it – the average length of stay in a care home is 22 months.

In addition, most of the proposed caps take no account of “hotel costs” – the non-care related costs of being in care, including food and lodging, which can exceed £100,000 for a lengthy stay in a care home.

However, other experts are cautious about free personal care. Caroline Abrahams, Age UK’s charity director, said: “A cap on care costs would only help a small minority of older people … Free personal care sounds great and there are some suggestions it would cost little more than a cap, but we’re not currently convinced it’s really as good as it looks.

“It would not, for example, help tackle the chronic labour shortage, nor in and of itself improve the quality and sustainability of the care on offer.

“A wide range of reforms is probably what’s required, included a national scheme which allows us to pool our risk of needing care so no one has to live in fear of sky-high care bills.”

Claire Turner, a director of evidence at the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “In addition to delivering a properly funded and effective social care system, the government should consider legislating for flexible, paid carers’ leave and give carers a right to return to the same job.”

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We introduced landmark reforms to prevent people from being forced to sell their homes to pay for their own care and have given local authorities access to up to £3.9bn more dedicated funding for adult social care this year, with a further £410m available for adults and children’s services.

“We will set out our plans to reform the social care system at the earliest opportunity to ensure it is sustainable for the future.”



