The value of an individual’s home has been excluded from cost calculations since the long-term care insurance scheme started more than 20 years ago. Successive States have since baulked at the idea of changing that and many candidates have placed protecting the family home at the centre of election campaigns.
Proposals to include the home’s value in care cost calculations, which is common in other places, failed to reach the previous Assembly after a new Policy & Resources Committee withdrew support from a cross-committee reform project.
The idea is now understood to have broader support among influential members of key committees, and Health president George Oswald has indicated that it would have his backing.
‘Those of us who have had elderly parents going through the system in the UK are used to the fact that unfortunately the family home nearly always has to be included in the very high costs of provision of elderly care, and that certainly applied in my family’s case,’ he said.
‘My generation, who have benefitted from a lot of plus points over the last 20 or 30 years, are going to have to be asked for more for their long-term care. Where that comes from is subject to debate, but all options are open as far as I’m concerned.
‘No doubt we will have to make some unpleasant decisions, but the alternative is that a lot of people will not get the care they need in the years when they need a lot of support, as is the case in every first-world economy.’
Listen to the full interview with Deputy George Oswald on the latest Guernsey Press Politics Podcast
The finances of the long-term care insurance scheme were boosted earlier this year when the previous States backed interim changes proposed by Employment & Social Security, including a new upfront charge of up to £10,000 on anyone entering a nursing or residential home from 2027 and higher weekly rates for beds from next year. But rising demand from the ageing population will still leave the scheme under considerable financial pressure.
HSC and ESS are due to meet early in the new year to discuss more far-reaching reforms aimed at securing the scheme for decades to come. Deputy Oswald expected committees to take a ‘significantly different’ approach to the work in this political term after the failure of the cross-committee project last term. He hoped proposals would be put in front of the States during 2026.
In Jersey, a single person can be asked to pay more than £70,000 towards their care, and a couple about £110,000. The value of their home is included in the cost calculation, but assets up to about £420,000 are protected for them and their heirs.
Experience in Jersey has indicated almost no cases of people having to sell their homes to fund care costs and Deputy Oswald said he ‘totally understands and takes on board’ the wish of families to pass on property to their heirs.
In the UK, there are no state-backed insurance schemes to assist with the cost of a place in nursing or residential care, which are paid in full by all recipients except those with assets below a few thousand pounds.
Deputy Oswald wanted to make sure that reforms in Guernsey would leave the insurance scheme with adequate funds to offset care costs for future generations, protect families’ assets as much as the island could afford, and shield the less well-off from rising charges.
Unless further changes are made, the long-term care insurance scheme will run out of funds, and Deputy Oswald saw it as a priority to deal with that problem.
‘We are under the financial cosh, we have rising demands, we have rising expectations, and we have to pay for the care. We will be discussing that at length, but I can’t say any more than that,’ he said.