If you need to move into a care home, we will work with you to find a suitable home that meets your needs.  If you want to move into a more expensive care home, a third party can pay the difference (called a ‘top-up’). The third party can be your spouse, another member of your family, a friend or a charity. You cannot pay your own top-up from your savings, because we will have already carried out a financial assessment of what is affordable for you to pay towards the cost of your care home. However, you can pay your own top-up from savings if you have a deferred payment agreement in place or if you are placed in a care home under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

There are some important things to consider with third party ‘top-up’ payments to care homes:

• The family or friends who are paying the top-up will need to be sure this is affordable for the duration of your stay in the care home. They may be required to share details of their financial position with us so that we can be assured of this, and will be required to enter into a contract with the council and possibly the care home.
• Care home fees normally increase each year, sometimes by more than the rate of inflation. This may impact the amount of money in the top-up.
• If friends or family do not pay the agreed top-up, we will carry out an assessment of your care needs and speak to the care home to agree next steps. This could result in you moving to a different care home.
• We recommend that family or friends get independent financial advice before entering into a third-party top-up agreement.

If you would like more information, please contact the Intake Team on 020 8227 2915 or intaketeam@lbbd.gov.uk