We believe you should be free to select a private care home of your choice where you can be close to family and friends. We can also guide you to care homes with a strong RAF connection, and help you understand what funding for care fees you can expect from your local authority. For further information please see Care fees.
Help towards paying care fees
We currently spend more than £700k a year helping over 300 beneficiaries in care homes with the cost of their care.
We can give you financial assistance to help bridge part of the gap between how much a local authority is prepared pay and the actual cost of care in a private home.
We only offer financial assistance if your local authority is paying some of your care fees. If you local authority is paying some of your fees, we know that you have less than £23,000 capital.
In addition, we may be able to give you a small supplement to your weekly personal allowance of £21.90 (2009/2010).
Useful information
Nomination rights
Although we no longer offer long term care to new residents in our care home, we have close links with a number of private care homes where we have bought "nomination rights".
When an organisation buys nomination rights, it pays a care home for the right to reserve a certain number of places in the care home for people of its choice.
If you are finding it difficult to find a place in a care home, we are sometimes able to nominate you for one our reserved places.
Nomination rights can be useful when places in care homes are hard to find, or when your needs make a particular care home especially suitable. The care homes where we have nomination rights usually still have waiting lists but they tend to be shorter.
Nominated residents in a care home still have to pay the care home's fees. We will consider topping-up your care fees on the same basis as residents in other care homes - see Care fees.
Useful information
Sheltered housing
You may not need long term residential or nursing care, in which case sheltered housing is an option. In sheltered housing your accommodation can usually be adapted to meet changing care needs and you have the benefit of a warden or manager who is watchful but unintrusive, allowing you and other residents to retain your independence.
We do not help with the cost of sheltered housing, but we have details of many organisations that are able to assist in its provision - please contact our advice and advocacy team or see the factsheet below.
Useful information
