Paying for residential care

You will be given a Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) which represents the amount of money you must be left to live on after you have paid for your care. Your MIG level depends on your age and circumstances at the time of your assessment.

If you are receiving care at home and receive certain disability-related benefits, such as Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance Care Component or Personal Independence Payment Daily Living, you may also be able to keep an amount to cover any significant extra disabilityPlease note: In Stoke-on-Trent, respite is charged at a set rate and therefore, the charge is not reduced by considering any household expenditure.

In Stoke-on-Trent, the Council can broker nonresidential care services for people with eligible needs who are funding their own care.

There is a charge for this service. Please contact the Council for more information.

If you require residential care, you can keep a weekly personal allowance out of your income. This is for your day-to-day needs or to save to buy items such as clothing and toiletries.

If you own your home and your husband, wife or partner continues to live there, its value will not be included in your financial assessment. If this does not apply, the value of your home will be ignored in your financial assessment for the first 12 weeks of residential care. This is called a twelve-week property disregard. However, from the 13th week onwards, the Council will treat the value of your home as capital in your financial assessment.

If your financial assessment has found that you are entitled to a contribution towards the cost of your care from the Council, there is an upper limit to the amount of money the Council will pay. This is usually determined by your specific circumstances. If you choose a care home that charges more than this amount, the extra cost must be met by a ‘third party payment’ or ‘top-up’.

Top-ups

A top-up is the commitment of a relative, friend or charity to pay the difference between the amount contributed by the Council and the fees charged by the care home.

Top-ups can vary greatly between private care homes because they can set their own fees, but they should be affordable and reasonable. Top-ups cannot be paid from your own capital or income, except in limited circumstances. Before anyone agrees to pay your top-up, they should be aware that the amount may increase, usually once a year, and there needs to be assurance that payments can be sustained for as long as they are required. The individual will need to sign a contract with the Council to confirm that they are able to commit to this.

If the additional payments stop being paid for any reason, you should seek help and advice from the Council. You may have to move to a cheaper home within the local authority’s funding levels.

If you are already a resident in a care home and no top-up was required at the time you became a resident, the home may seek to introduce one at a later date, which would need to be agreed first with the local authority. This may happen if a change to your arrangements is made at your request or with your agreement, such as moving to a nicer room.

It is important to note that Councils have a duty to offer you a place at a home that accepts their funding rates. If no such place is available, a top-up should not be charged.

Will I have to sell my home?

If you own your home and are moving into residential care, one of the biggest worries that you may have is ‘what will happen to my home?’. The following information should help with this.

You may be able to use the value of your home to help pay towards care home fees. The Council will help to pay your care fees and you can delay