Calculating your financial assistance
Income
Most income is counted in the financial assessment. In general, you must use all your income to pay for your care home fees minus an amount for personal expenses, which is a set amount worked out by the Department for Health and Social Care.
- War Disability Pension
- War Widows Pension
- Earnings
- Working Tax Credit
- Disability Living Allowance Mobility Component
- Personal Independence Payment Mobility Component
- War Widows Supplementary Pension
- Guaranteed Income Payments from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme
- Armed Forces Independence Payment
- State Retirement Pension
- Occupational Pension/Private Pension
- Pension Credit
- Income Support
- Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Severe Disablement Allowance
- Armed Forces Independence Payment
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA) Care Component
- Attendance Allowance (AA)
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Daily Living Component
- Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
- Universal Credit
Personal expenses amount
The Government sets this amount from April each year. The current amount is set £28.25 per week. If your stay is temporary, we may allow certain additional household expenses.
If you qualify for extra benefits but choose not to claim them, we still have to include the money you would get if you did claim. This will affect the amount of financial assistance you can get.
Capital
If you have savings and investments of £14,250 or less, they will be ignored completely.
- Bank / Building society accounts
- Property
- Land
- National Savings Certificates
- Premium Bonds
- Stocks and Shares
- Trust Funds
If you have savings above £14,250 but below £23,250, £1 per week will be counted as income for every £250 you have between £14,250 and £23,250, this is known as tariff income.
Including the cost of funeral expenses in financial assessments
£14,250 of your capital is already ignored which should cover the cost of your funeral when the time comes. If you do pre-pay for your funeral and you have more than £14,250 in savings, we will include the amount you have paid out as if you still had it.
Please note that any personal debt cannot be taken into account in your financial assessment.
Share of your house if it's occupied by your partner
Your share of the value of your house is disregarded in your financial assessment until your partner moves to a new house, passes away or the property is sold.