The support you receive will depend on your support plan and your care needs. We will work with you and your family to develop your support plan and discuss the things that you can do for yourself, what you can do with some help and any other needs you might have, such as medication or personal care.

More information about moving into a care home can be found on Connect to Support Hampshire.

Social care is not free, and you may need to pay for some or all of your care. You will need to have a financial assessment from the council to determine how much of your care you will need to pay for. If you have more than £23,250 in savings, it is very unlikely that you will be eligible for funding from us.

You can use our quick financial indicator tool to find out if you are likely to qualify for financial help from us.

More information about paying for care in a care home is available.

In some circumstances you may be eligible for a type of loan by the Council secured against your property. This is known as a deferred payment arrangement.

Some people with long-term complex health needs qualify for care arranged and funded solely by the NHS. This is called NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC). If you think you may be eligible for CHC, you can contact Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB directly for an assessment.

The amount you pay for care in a residential or nursing home will depend on the level of care you need and whether you are fully or partly funding your own care. The level of care you need will be determined by your Care Act Assessment and you will be informed what type of care we believe you need as per the table below. Whether you need to fully or partly fund your care will be determined by your financial assessment. Hampshire County Council work with preferred independent providers to ensure care is offered at a fair price. The price Hampshire County Council pays is set out below, however if you are self-funding your own care the cost may be higher.

The rates we pay for care homes fall into the following bands:

You will be offered a choice of care home that our Brokerage team will source for you. It is likely that one of these will be a Hampshire County Council care home and the other from a private provider. If a Hampshire County Council Care and Support services home is not available or declined the brokerage team will work with you and your family to find you a choice of up to two independent sector care homes, that we work with.

Hampshire County Council care homes

You can read more about the care homes run by Hampshire County Council.

Preferred residential and nursing home providers

You can read more about the independent care homes we work with in Hampshire County Council.

You may wish to visit some care homes whilst your care act and financial assessments are underway. It would be worth letting the provider know you are currently going through this process with the Local Authority and let the member of the social care team you are working with know if you have a home preference. We can not guarantee we will be able to offer you your preferred home.

You may also like to visit the care home brokerage offer you, this is possible however this should occur within 72 hours of your offer.

Hampshire County Council have a large number of providers signed up to deliver long-term residential and nursing services under the Care Home Framework. You can look at the approved care homes that the Council works with. Hampshire County Council will always offer you a home that is able to meet your needs and within your personal budget.

You can choose a home that it is not on the Framework which will not have been subject to Hampshire County Council's thorough checks, or a care home that is more expensive than a home we offer. In these circumstances you can ask someone else, such as a family member to help pay towards the cost of your care. This is called a top-up payment.

Once you have had your care assessment and it has been determined that you are eligible for support from Hampshire County Council, we will refer you to our Brokerage team to source your care. Once Brokerage receive your referral, we aim that it should not take longer than seven to ten days for you to move into your new home.

If you have more than £23,250 in assessable savings and/or capital (usually including the value of your home), you will need to pay the full cost of care yourself. It is particularly important that you and your family consider what will happen if your savings were to fall below the ‘capital threshold’ of £23,250. Hampshire County Council, as your local authority, will assess your care and support needs and follow our Capital Depleter Policy. You will always be offered at least one care home place that will meet your eligible needs. However, the County Council will not necessarily pay for your current accommodation if this is more expensive than we would usually expect to pay to meet your assessed needs. If you wish to stay in your current accommodation and decline a reasonable offer from the County Council, you may need to ask your family or another third party to pay a ‘top-up’ fee. A top-up is where a third party pays the difference between what the County Council would reasonably expect to pay, and the rate charged by your chosen care home. More information on what happens when your capital depletes can be found on our main web pages.

The County Council recommends that you get in touch with when you have £40,000 of funds remaining. You should call us on 0300 555 1386. This is to allow enough time for us to assess your care and supports needs and for a financial assessment to be undertaken. It also allows enough time for conversations about:

• whether the care is at the same rate the County Council would pay
• if not, whether someone is able to pay the difference (third party top-up)
• if an alternative care placement needs to be sought