The future funding of nursing and residential care will be in the spotlight at next week’s Tynwald sitting.
A select committee report is recommending that a separate fund be established to support the funding of nursing and residential care.
And controversially it suggests that more could be done to encourage people’s capital assets to be drawn on as a source of funding.
The island currently has an over-65 population of around 17,000 but demand outstrips supply for both nursing and residential care.
There are just over 900 beds in residential and nursing care provided by 27 homes ranging in size from nine to 66 beds. Of these, 19 homes provide residential care only, six provide nursing care only, and two provide both.
Of the 19 providing residential care only, seven are operated by the Department of Health and Social Care while the others are privately run. All nursing care is provided by the private sector.
In February this year there were 31 people awaiting a residential placement and only seven vacancies. There were 27 cases delayed in Noble’s Hospital, seven of them awaiting placement in nursing care.
Weekly fees for residential care range from £250-700, weekly fees for nursing care range from £850-925.11.
Around half of the people currently in such homes are on income support. But those who are not may be forced to sell their homes to cover the cost.
The select committee report notes: ‘We acknowledge the emotional attachment which many people feel to owning their own home. Nevertheless, we have to raise the question of whether more could be done to encourage capital assets to be drawn on as a source of funding (eg a requirement to rent).
‘We discussed whether people should have to be protected from having to sell their only home to fund their nursing home care, but we were unable to reach agreement on this issue.’
The report recommends CoMin should investigate ways of ‘exploiting’ service users’ capital assets to fund the costs of care.
It also recommends setting up a separate fund but comes to no conclusion about where the source of contributions to the fund should come from.
In the Council of Ministers’ response, Health and Social Care Minister Kate Beecroft says her department is in agreement with the report’s broad recommendations but says they can’t be accepted without further work and consultation.
She said it is ‘not immediately clear’ what benefits there would be of having a separate fund – and the use of the word ‘exploiting’ in relation to the drawing on of capital assets was ‘inappropriate’.
Mrs Beecroft said her department has considered the use of personal assets to fund residential and social care and the option of equity release cannot be considered in isolation.
Work was needed on options to help ‘asset rich, cash poor’ older people reside in their own homes with some supportive care, she added.
She said CoMin should consider equity release, the benefits, costs and funding of the proposed fund and the criteria used to determine who might receive support from it.
Mrs Beecroft said such a review will be complicated and involve cross-government working. She recommends CoMin report to Tynwald by July next year on progress, with a final report required by July 2018.