Adult Social Care

Paying for care and support at home

You might need to pay for some or all of the care and support you receive at home. Or you might not need to pay anything at all.

After your care and support package is in place, we will do a financial assessment. This will look at how much you need to contribute and if you can get help to pay for it.

The Benefits Maximisation Service will offer a benefits check to make sure you are receiving all the benefits you are entitled to.

What we look at

When we look at how much money you have, there are some things we ignore and some things we include.

  • If we ignore something, we do not expect you to use it to pay for care and will not assess it.
  • If we include it, we'll take it into account to work out how much you can afford to pay for support.

Savings and investments

This includes your bank/building society accounts, shares, premium bonds, land and properties that are not your main home.

If you own the property you live in, its value is ignored whilst you live in it and receive care and support there.

  • We will ignore savings of £14,250 or less.
  • We will include savings between £14,250 and £23,250 when working out what you can afford - you may still qualify for help to pay.
  • We will include savings of more than £23,250. You will be asked to pay the full cost of your care and will not be eligible to any financial support.

Personal belongings are ignored, and not included in the financial assessment.

Daily living costs

We can ignore some of your daily living costs when we look at how much money you have.

Cost of living allowance

You can keep back a fixed amount to go towards housing, bills, food and clothes. The amount you keep depends on your age, circumstances and what benefits you get.

Disability related expenses

You might have disability related expenses (DRE) because you have to pay for things you only need because of your disability or frailty - for example, a gardener or cleaner.

We aim to allow for reasonable expenses where you have little or no choice to incur the cost if they are:

  • not already funded in your care and support plan or by the NHS
  • not something you pay for by choice, but are absolutely necessary
  • not a payment to a family member

We will need to see receipts for any disability related expenses, including the details of the person or company providing the service.

We automatically apply a standard minimum local disregard (currently £24.16 per week) of expenses and costs where you receive the following benefits:

  • Attendance Allowance
  • Disability Living Allowance (middle/high rate of the care component)
  • Personal Independence payment (daily living component)

However, you can apply for the recognition of further disability related expenditure beyond the minimum that you are entitled to.

If you receive Disability Allowance at the lower rate, you are not entitled to the standard minimum local disregard referred to above. But you can request an individual assessment at any time for any disability related expenditure you may have.

The government's care and support statutory guidance (Annex C) gives details of expenses and costs a local authority should consider when determining disability-related expenditure.

Non-residential charging policy

The council's non-residential charging policy complies with the Care Act 2014 which aims to provide a reasonable and fair charging framework for all service users.