A review of consumer views on policy proposals to pay for long-term.
Since 1997 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has been exploring whether a consensus can be built around possible mechanisms for meeting the costs of long-term care in the UK. Earlier this year the JRF published a report, Facing the Cost of Long-term Care: Towards a Sustainable Funding System, which drew together some of the key evidence that the programme had generated and presented a number of policy options.
To test the viability and acceptability of these options, public attitudes towards these options were tested in a series of eight focus groups. This report and summary documents the findings.
The ideas tested were:
- standardised assessment and means testing of domiciliary services;
- re-packaging Attendance Allowance into a standardised care payment;
- increasing support of informal carers – through resources and/or formal help;
- the potential of equity release schemes to pay for domiciliary care costs.
A summary is available (PDF, 83KB).