Pay your care invoices online:
Find information about all aspects of planning and paying for care:
- Planning and paying for care
- Free care and support services
- Chargeable care and support services
- Assessment for funding eligibility
- Self-funding care
- Calculating your contribution for care
- Care contribution calculation examples
- Top-up payments
- Non-payment and debt recovery
- Complaining about your care charge
Planning and paying for care
Read our financial information and advice if you're thinking about how to plan and pay for care.
Read our advice on managing your finances and what could happen if you haven’t made advance arrangements.
Free care and support services
The following care and support services are provided free of charge:
- equipment, aids and adaptations to assist with living at home, to the value of £1,000
- re-ablement support services for up to 6 weeks
- care and support for people with Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD)
- services which the NHS has a duty to provide
- assessment of need
- care planning including information and advice
- help in completing your financial assessment
Chargeable care and support services
All chargeable care and support services are purchased through personal budgets.
Read more about paying for care and support, including an overview of how personal budgets work, and information on our current fees, charges, allowances and rates.
Assessment for funding eligibility
You'll first be assessed to see if you have eligible care and support needs.
If you do, we'll make a referral for a financial assessment.
Self-funding care
If you have capital (excluding your main or only home) over £23,250, you'll be responsible for funding all of your care and support costs.
See our advice on self-funding and funding eligibility to help you decide how to arrange your care and support.
We can give you an idea of when funding should become available if:
- you've been self-funding in a care home
- you don’t own a property, and
- your savings are reducing to £23,250
See more information about how we calculate your eligibility for funding.
Calculating your contribution for care
If your capital is less than £23,250, we'll do a financial assessment to calculate how much you can contribute towards your care and support costs.
We'll calculate your contribution based on the type of care you'll receive.
There are three types of financial assessment:
- non-residential financial assessment
- temporary residential financial assessment
- permanent residential financial assessment
You may be eligible for a 12 week property disregard if you're:
- in a residential care home, or
- on a Deferred Payment Agreement (DPA) scheme to cover some or all of your care costs
Use our DPA calculator to find out whether you'll be offered a deferred payment, and estimate what you'll be able to afford.
Care contribution calculation examples
To help you understand how care contributions are calculated, we've provided some examples of financial assessments of income, capital and expenditure:
- non-residential calculation example 1
- non-residential calculation example 2
- temporary residential calculation example
- permanent residential calculation example 1
- permanent residential calculation example 2 (12 week property disregard)
- deferred payment calculation and property rental income
Top-up payments
If you choose to go into a care home that costs more than the local authority-agreed budget for your care, you can pay the additional cost through a top-up agreement.
If you choose this option, we recommend seeking financial advice first.
See further details of organisations that can provide financial information, advice and support.
Non-payment and debt recovery
The Care Act 2014 sets out what action we can take in the case of non-payment of care fees and debt recovery.
Complaining about your care charge
Make a complaint if you disagree with:
- how your care charge has been calculated, or
- the amount of the charge