Explains your rights to social care, and how this differs from healthcare. Includes information on eligibility, needs assessments, financial assessments, and how local authorities may meet your needs.
View this information as a PDF (new window)
Unlike healthcare services provided by the NHS, social care is not always free. If the local authority provides you with support, it must assess your financial circumstances and decide whether you need to pay for some of the cost. If you do, the local authority will give you a copy of the assessment and explain how the decision was made.
Your financial assessment will generally be carried out at the same time as your needs assessment.
Income is usually regular payments that you receive. Most types of income will be taken into account, but some are not.
Income does not include:
If you have income as part of a couple, then only your share will be taken into account. The assessment cannot consider the income of your partner or family members.
Capital is the money or other assets that you own, for example:
The assessment will add up all of your capital.
If you own a share in an asset (for example if you own a house as a couple or have savings in a joint account), the value of your share will be taken into account. The assessment cannot count assets that you don't own, for example savings of your partner.
If you own a home, the value of your home will not be taken into account if:
If the total value of your capital is:
How much you need to contribute depends on whether or not you live in a care home.
If the total value of your capital is:
If the total value of your capital is:
Maude gets support from carers twice a day, helping her clean her home and prepare meals. She lives at home with her partner, Arun, in a house valued at £350,000 and no mortgage. Maude also has a joint bank account with Arun worth £20,000.
The local authority assesses Maude's finances. The value of her home is not taken into account as she is living there. Fifty percent of the joint savings will be taken into account, so Maude's total capital will be £10,000.
The local authority must leave you with enough money to live on and cannot reduce your income to below a minimum amount.
If you're in a care home, this is £24.90 per week in England and £28.50 in Wales.
If you're not in a care home, the minimum amount will depend on:
In some circumstances, you may not need a full assessment. This might be because it's clear that:
Some social care cannot be charged for, for example:
This information was published in February 2018.
This page is currently under review. All content was accurate when published.
References are available on request. If you would like to reproduce any of this information, see our page on permissions and licensing.