Nursing homes can be expensive

BBC News Online spoke to one woman whose family struggled to cope.

But when both were struck down with heart disease in the early 1990s they found that it was no longer safe or practical for them to stay at home.

Reluctantly, after several years when first one or the other was seriously ill, they accepted the need to move to a residential care home.

Despite their poor health, neither was considered ill enough to require nursing care.

This meant that they had to be means tested by social services, who decided that their life savings and the value of their home was sufficient for them to pay for the cost of their own care.

High fees

From the outset, however, the family struggled to meet the �24,000 a year which it cost to keep both in care.

We are not talking about wealthy people, we are talking about ordinary people who, when they need support, can't get it Myfanwy Manning

"My parents were extremely diligent all their lives," said Ms Manning.

"My father never had a day off work, but he wasn't highly paid, and my mother worked to keep the mortgage going, particularly when he was in the war.

"Their homes was the only thing that mattered to them, and they went into a residential home with the greatest of reluctance."

Social services wanted to enter into a legal agreement whereby it would recover the cost of care from the sale of the family house when Ms Manning's parents died.

But the complex legal detail was too much to cope with, as well as supporting the couple in the residential home.

Meanwhile, Ms Manning's parents were forced to live on just �14 a week from their pension - the rest going to cover the cost of their care.

A course of chiropody alone cost �14 a fortnight - half their rations in one go.

Traumatic time

"It was such a struggle in the end that we decided that we would have to sell the house to provide the money for the �2,000 a month fees," said Ms Manning.

"But I think both my parents would have died much sooner if they had known that their home had been sold, so we arranged to take out a mortgage and buy the house ourselves so all their furniture and possessions were still there.

"My mother died three years ago, and because she had developed Alzheimer's I don't think she realised, but I think my father - who died last year - had an inkling what had happened.

"It was a very traumatic time. It was not just about selling a home, it was about the realisation that even if they got better they would have had nowhere to go.

"I think it's absolutely disgraceful that the government insists on means testing for what they call 'personal care'.

"We are not talking about wealthy people, we are talking about ordinary people who, when they need support can't get it.

"I feel very, very bitter and very sorry for all the people who are going to go through what we went through because we have got a government that does not value elderly or disabled people."