Ann Reid's mother, Peggy Belcher, is 94 and has dementia.  She has lived in a care home for the past 8 years.  Ann sold her mother's home for £176,000 to pay for care home fees and, in the past 8 years, she has paid out £222,000 in care home costs. 

The amounts of money involved are eye-watering.  It's for this reason that Andrew Dilnot's reforms, which will introduce a limited cap on the cost of care, have been widely welcomed. 

Ann, perhaps surprisingly, did not object to her mother being required to pay for her care.  What she did object to was the council's view that, because her mother paid for her own care, she was "not their problem".  This is despite the fact that, as new LGiU research conducted in collaboration with the insurer Partnership shows, full self-funders make up 45 per cent of care home residents. 

Ann found that local government support was lacking in two key areas.  First, Ann found that basic information about paying for care and benefits that she could claim, including reductions in council tax because she was also caring for her husband, was not forthcoming at the point of entry into care.  Ann told the LGiU that, "if I had known then what I know now, I would have done things very differently". 

Second, Ann found that temporary care was not made available for self-funders and guidance on choosing a care home was not forthcoming.  As a result, Ann was forced to make a rapid decision under significant pressure.  Peggy was, in consequence, placed in a care home that was unsuitable for her needs.

There are strong incentives for local government to improve support for self funders.  First, as Ann's experience makes clear, older people who pay for their own care represent a growing number of vulnerable residents who can experience significant hardship.

Councils, however, also pay a heavy price.  Under the current system, councils pay for self-funders who deplete their assets. The LGiU calculates that, in residential care alone, this cost councils in England £425 million in 2011-12.  This cost is more than four times the £104 million worth of service reductions that adult service departments will make in 2013-14.

Providing self-funders with access to early and effective financial advice can help self-funders make decisions that will maximise their assets, reduce the stress on families of having to take decisions about funding care in an emergency and save councils money.

The LGiU report highlights leading practice from authorities who are already putting in place systems to deliver access to regulated financial advice, promote these services through GP surgeries, hospitals and libraries and ensuring that self-funders can access temporary care to provide a vital "air gap" while the family choose a home. 

Hertfordshire County Council, for instance, has launched a new service to enable self-funders to make better-informed choices and cut the £3-4 million cost of self-funders falling back on state funding.  The freephone service, provided by PayingForCare, ensures that prior to making decisions about what kind of care an older person requires, and how they will pay for it, he or she is in possession of all the necessary information. There has been a positive response from residents and, as of May 2013, 23 per cent of self-funders had sought financial advice.

To help take pressure of self-funders when choosing care and support, another key priority identified in the report, local authorities are making temporary care available to self-funders.  Decisions about care and support, as the Office of Fair Trading has found, will often be taken by a vulnerable older person who is in poor physical or mental health, under pressure to make a quick decision and with little previous experience. 

The Poole and District Hospital Discharge and Screening Team runs a screening service that is aimed at people being discharged from hospital who are assessed as self-funders or with non-critical care needs. An advocacy and support worker will visit the patient, liaise with health and social care staff and family members to help the patient access the most appropriate services post discharge. This may be as basic as arranging for a dog walker to advice and guidance on selecting local providers of care services.

Encouragingly, local government as a whole has given strong support to improvements in support for self-funders.  In her response to the report, ADASS President Sandie Keene stressed that directors of adult social services had broad responsibilities to all the adults in their local communities, whether state or self-funded, and that providing relevant and up to date information to every citizen was of utmost concern.

I'm optimistic that, if councils can follow-up on this commitment with real action, we can cut the financial and human cost of paying for care and make difficult cases like Peggy's the exception, rather than the rule.