Care Home Fees

 

The average weekly cost of a place in a residential home in England was around £587, and a place in a nursing home cost around £790

Care home costs vary widely across the UK depending on where your relative lives and what type of care he or she requires. The fee your relative must pay also depends on whether their room is a single or shared, and even what your relative's needs are.

For example, a care home is quite likely to add to their average fee for someone who has dementia. As you might expect, the highest fee rates are in the south east of England and the lowest are in Northern Ireland and north east England

Residential care home fees are consistently lower to match the lower level of care that is given. In 2014-15, the UK average weekly fee for a care home that provides personal care was £587.

Here we show the average fees by region for privately and publicly-funded rooms combined, as researched by KnightFrank for their 2015 Care homes trading performance review.

Region	Cost of nursing care/week	Cost of residential care/week
North east	£577	£505
North west	£609	£525
Yorkshire and the Humber	£601	£532
East Midlands	£646	£567
West Midlands	£705	£578
East of England	£735	£612
London	£834	£660
South east	£893	£718
South west	£800	£698
Northern Ireland	£582	£584
Scotland	£674	£589
Wales	£631	£540

How much might a self-funder pay in care home fees?

Armed with these average weekly figures, it's easy to see that someone who is paying all their own fees will quickly start amassing a sizeable bill. If your father lives in Northumberland and he is moving into a residential care home, the chances are he will be paying around £26,247 in fees each year. If he lives in Kent and is moving into a nursing home, the fees are likely to be in the region of £46,436 each year.

Then consider that the average length of time that older people stay in a care home is a little over two-and-a-half years and the potential bill for funding for care in old age could be as much as a daunting £116,000.

However, less than half of people in a care home (an estimated 44%) are fully self-funded, so don’t assume that your relative will be paying all his or her own fees.

On 1 April 2016, the government had planned to implement a cap on the amount of money everyone would pay for the cost of care over the course of their lifetime. This was set to be at £72,000. However, in July 2015 the government announced that the plans would be delayed to April 2020.

The cost of care therefore remains the responsibility of the local authorities for people whose income and assets are assessed as being beneath the threshold and those people who are self-funding a care home will continue to pay all their fees.

Downloadable guide

Helping loved ones in later life is an introduction to the different care choices that are available. Perhaps you are looking for ways to help a relative to stay living at home, or it could be that one (or both) of your parents or a partner want to move into somewhere offering sheltered or residential care. We explain the choices and how to find out more.

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