Paying for home care or day care
Your support plan outlines the number of care hours you should receive weekly, whether at home, in one of our day centres, or through a direct payment.
We have established maximum charges for each service.
You will need to complete a Financial Assessment Form, and based on this information, we will work out how much you should contribute.
Maximum charges
If you have savings over £23,250 you will have to pay the maximum charges for the services you receive.
The current charges are:
Home care
You will be charged the care provider’s hourly rate.
Day care
The cost of attending day centres varies depending on the specific centre you go to and the level of support you require. Below are some examples of daily charges:
| Day centre | Cost per day |
|---|---|
| JMC (Jan Malinowski Centre) | £50.20 |
| Leyton Road | £36.00 |
| All Saints | £35.80 |
| Eastway | £37.80 |
Transport is charged if using the Merton Bus to Eastway, All Saints, Leyton Road and JMC. Each trip is charged at £2.70 (return journey total £5.40 per day)
Financial assessment form
When completing the financial assessment form for home or day care services, you will need to provide details of your savings, income, and expenses.
This information is used to calculate how much you can afford to contribute towards the cost of these community care services.
Savings
You will need to list all your savings, such as bank and building society accounts, stocks, shares, ISA’s and investments. If your total savings come to less than £14,250, we will not include them when working out your contribution.
If you hold joint accounts with your partner, your partners share 50% will be disregarded.
We will not include the value of the home you live in when calculating your savings.
Income
We will ask you to list your income such as:
- State Retirement Pension
- Pension Credit
- private/occupational pensions
- Income Support
- Employment Support Allowance
- Universal Credit
- Attendance Allowance/Disability Living Allowance/Personal Independence Payment
- any other sources of income you may receive
Your husband's or wife’s income will not be included in our assessment.
We want to make sure that you receive all the benefits you are entitled to, so we offer a free benefit check when we carry out your assessment.
Expenses
We will make allowances for your bills and living expenses when calculating your contributions. The following expenses are considered:
- council tax
- rent/ground rent
- water rates
- mortgage/building insurance
- service/maintenance charges
- disability related expenditure (e.g. Mascot Telecare charges)
If you do not return a financial assessment form or you do not answer all the questions on it, you may be charged the full cost of your services.
Disability related expenses
Disability-related expenses are any expenses you incur due to your illness or disability, for example paying for a telecare alarm or paying for wheelchair insurance.
If you receive a disability benefit, such as Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance or PIP, and tell us on the financial assessment form that you have disability related expense will include a standard expenses rate of £10 per week.
If you feel you spend more than this on expenses related to your disability, you will need to send proof of receipts from four weeks up to three months of these costs with the form. (We may ask for further evidence beyond this if needed.)
If you disagree with how much you are asked to pay
If you have questions or concerns about how your assessed contributions were calculated for your care, please contact us.
We will explain the outcome of your assessment and you can ask us to review your contribution if needed.
If you are still dissatisfied, you can make a formal complaint.
Contact us
Email: financial.assessment@merton.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 8545 3632