At the moment, we can only provide financial help towards the cost of care in a residential or nursing home if:
• you have £23,250 or less in savings and investments (not including the value of your main or only home); and
• we have agreed that the best way to meet your needs is in a residential or nursing home.

When we carry out the financial assessment to work out your contribution if you go into a home permanently, we will take account of your income (this does not include earnings from paid employment), savings and investments, and allowances. These are explained below.

Income

• All state benefits you receive (except for the mobility part of Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment and any War Disablement Pension)
• Private pensions or pensions related to your work
• Income from trust funds
• Any other income (except for interest on bank and building society accounts and income from some investments, such as stocks and shares, which we must treat as savings or investments)

Savings and investments

This includes, but is not limited to, bank and building society accounts, National Savings accounts, income bonds, savings certificates, Premium Bonds, all stocks and shares, ISAs, land and property that is not your main or only home.

We will charge you £1 a week for every £250 (or part of £250) of savings and investments you have between £14,250 and £23,250 as a contribution towards the cost of your care.

Allowances

We will take a personal allowance of £30.15 a week off the total amount we assess that you have to pay towards the cost of your care. A personal allowance is the minimum weekly amount that you have left to spend as you want, after all your board and accommodation is paid for.

Every year we will work out the amount you have to pay to take account of changes to state benefits and personal allowances.

What happens if I am married or living with a partner?

If you are married, in a civil partnership or living with someone as a couple and only you are going into residential care, we will only assess how much money you have. If both you and your partner are going into care, we will assess your finances individually to work out how much you will each have to contribute towards the cost of your own care.

If you are married or in a civil partnership and are going into residential care, and you receive an occupational pension, personal pension, or payments from a retirement annuity contract, we will ignore 50% of that pension for your financial assessment if you choose to transfer that share to your partner who is staying at home. However, this may affect the state benefits that your partner can receive. You may want to get independent advice from the Department for Work and Pensions to help you make this decision.