Long-term care will cost you £10,000 on arrival

The fee paid by a resident of long-term care for a standard rate bed – known as the co-payment – would be gradually increased over the next five years, from £342 to £514 a week, on top of annual adjustments of inflation plus 1%, which could push it above £600 a week by 2030.

In addition, from 2027 at the earliest, a new ‘user care cost contribution’ of up to £10,000 would be required from every resident of long-term care who has assets above £15,000, although the value of the family home would continue to be excluded from any financial assessment.

The proposals, published today by the Employment & Social Security Committee, for debate by the States early in the new year, are designed partly to increase the supply of beds, including standard ‘States-rate’ beds, to meet rapidly rising demand from the island’s ageing population.

‘Through this policy letter, the committee is seeking to head off issues we know are on the horizon in the long-term care sector,’ said ESS president Peter Roffey.

‘We want to stabilise the private care home market, incentivise investment in the sector, and prolong the financial sustainability of the long-term care fund.

‘The immediate measures we are proposing are vital to mitigate short-term pressures and ensure the community can continue to access bed-based care services when they need them.’

Deputy Roffey said the proposals from ESS were ‘just some initial first steps’ confined to issues under his committee’s mandate. Wider changes to long-term care funding have been kicked into the next States after Policy & Resources and Health & Social Care pulled out of a tripartite project to deal with all the issues this term.

In particular, the current proposals do not prevent the exhaustion of reserves in the long-term care fund, which will continue to meet residential and nursing home costs remaining after the resident’s co-payment and new £10,000 contribution have been taken into account.

These reserves are now projected to last until the 2060s.

The current proposals also fail to extend the island’s insurance scheme to cover the costs of long-term care provided in an individual’s own home, which the States has twice previously agreed in principle, in 2016 and 2020, but which will now need to await the resumption of the tripartite project after next year’s general election.