Will my life savings be wiped out by care costs?

Cakes. Holidays. Great music. All enjoyable things to think about.

Financial planning for your end of life care? Not so much.

Perhaps this explains why it can come as a major shock when people arrive at the later stages of life, only to see their savings wiped out by a costly care bill as a result of a stroke, dementia or age-related conditions.

George and Jean Cooke, from Derbyshire, recently shared how they had spent more than £60,000 of their own money on continuing care for 85-year-old George following a stroke last year.

Jean said she felt "gutted", telling the BBC: "I just think the system is not fair. People should not have to pay when they've worked all their life."

So how many of us are facing a similar fate? And is there anything we can do about it?

The sad fact is not everyone gets to enjoy a retirement filled with afternoon teas and Mediterranean cruises - many of us will see our sunset years marred by serious health conditions requiring ongoing round-the-clock care.

When this situation arises, the cost of the necessary care is means tested by your local council following an assessment of your financial circumstances.

Both care home residency and private sector care at home can cost thousands of pounds each month, and if you have assets of £23,350 or more - an amount set by the government - you will more than likely be expected to cover that cost yourself.

Significantly, if you need to move into a care home, this sum includes the value of the home you are leaving, unless a partner or dependent still lives there.

However, it is not included if you receive care at home, like George Cooke in the example above.

Those with assets below that amount have the bulk of their care paid for by the local authority - so when your money starts to run out, you can get some help.

However, it can leave some people wondering why they bothered to save in the first place.

There has long been an acknowledgement that something needs to change to ease the burden on individuals - the difficult part has been making it happen.

In 2021, the prime minister of the time Boris Johnson announced plans to introduce an £86,000 cap on the cost of social care, following the Conservative manifesto promise that "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it".

Implementation was delayed from October 2023 to October 2025, and the cap was then scrapped by Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves in 2024.

An independent commission led by Baroness Louise Casey is now under way to set out a plan for a national care service, a Labour 2024 election manifesto pledge.

Part of this work - due to report back next year - will "discuss alternative models that could be considered in future to deliver a fair and affordable adult care system".

In July, shortly after becoming prime minister, Andy Burnham reiterated social care was in need of reform but told the BBC he could not put a timeline on when things would change.

During a major speech in July, Burnham set out a number of ways he hoped to make progress on overhauling the care system - including asking Baroness Casey to report back a year earlier than the original 2028 deadline.

He also announced cross-party talks on the issue and said the government had agreed a fair pay deal for social care staff to be introduced in the 2028-29 financial year. However, he added he wanted to discuss how to turn the fair pay agreement into a bigger reform to lift up the social care workforce.

This prompted BBC Verify to look at four options for transforming care and how they would be paid for.

These suggestions range from a more generous means test to universal free care - the latter of which would cost an estimated £19bn a year.

Caroline Abrahams, director of the charity Age UK, is among those in favour of a more collective approach to care funding.

"Although it's true that doing everything we can to stay fit and well as we get older helps a great deal, it's impossible to predict which of us will go on to need a lot of social care and who may need no social care at all," she said.

"For this reason, it makes a lot of sense for us to come together to share the risk of developing care needs by all contributing into a fund through our lives, so that if we are one of the unlucky ones who needs social care, it is there for us, without us having to worry about how to pay for it when the time comes - which is often a time of crisis, such as after a fall.

"You can call this a form of national insurance, or a tax, or something else, but the key point is that we're all in it together rather than the position today, whereby if you develop a need for care - you're basically on your own."

A couple of support schemes have been set up by the NHS for those receiving care - but places are limited and the application process can be, by the NHS's own admission, complex.

NHS Continuing Healthcare provides free health and social care for people with the most complex needs - both in care homes and the community.

Eligibility is assessed by your local integrated care board with areas like complexity, intensity and unpredictability part of the consideration.

However, the vast majority of families who apply for this support are unsuccessful - with national figures for the first quarter of 2026 showing only about one in six applications was deemed eligible.

As a result a number of private firms have been set up to help people through the application process and supposedly boost their chances of a positive outcome - in return for a fee in the thousands.

Those found ineligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare may instead be deemed suitable for another support scheme - NHS-funded nursing care.

This means the NHS will pay a contribution towards the cost of your registered nursing care, irrespective of who is funding the rest of the care home fees.

Faced with the prospect of their inheritance evaporating before their eyes, it is understandable that many will consider the idea of transferring money and assets to loved ones ahead of time in an attempt to remove them from care cost considerations.

However such a move is risky. Any evidence of this type of activity can be judged by council assessors as a deliberate deprivation of assets and factored into their final figure of how much you should pay.

Some people believe if the transfer happened at least seven years prior the assessment, it will not be counted, but that is a myth linked to the rules on inheritance tax. In truth no time limit exists.

Another approach is to put assets - often property - into a trust with loved ones as appointed trustees in the hope of keeping it out of the care calculations.

However, this is a complicated legal area that may still be judged by the council as a deliberate deprivation of assets.

Nerina Farmer, head of the wills and probate team at Nottingham-based Ringrose Law, also advises caution.

She said: "Whilst as a firm we do not advocate placing a property as a whole into a trust - we have unravelled too many of these over the years - we would urge everybody to review their wills regularly with a firm of solicitors, who can go through your assets, your family make-up and so on, in order that your circumstances can be reviewed and appropriate advice provided."

Of course there is also the moral aspect to all this. Some may argue that witholding your own wealth to protect an inheritance at the expense of the public purse is wrong.

Age UK's Caroline Abrahams said in reforming the system, the government should not be afraid to follow the lead of other nations, such as Germany, which has a mandatory long-term care insurance system funded through contributions from workers and employers

"Many other similar countries took action to reform their social care systems at the end of the last century, or in the early 2000s - but ours is substantially the same as it was in the 1950s," she said.

"This means we have a lot of catching up to do, but more positively there are many lessons to learn from the experiences of other nations.

"No country has completely 'cracked it', but there are different things to like, from the approaches to social care taken in Germany, Japan and Australia, among others.

"Many commentators say that even within Great Britain, the social care systems are better in Wales and Scotland than the one we have in England.

"Hopefully we can take the best from other nations and put together a new approach that works for us here.

"Certainly, in all these other countries, the individual and their family is offered more support, and usually earlier too, compared to how social care works here in England."

Abrahams said she felt positive tangible change could be delivered by Burnham's government despite ongoing pressure on the national purse.

She said: "We are optimistic that finally, we will lay the foundations for a better social care system in England over the next few years.

"Of course, there are many different pressures bearing down on our government, politically and financially.

"However, it makes a big difference when a prime minister is seriously committed to resolving a problem, as Andy Burnham says he is when it comes to social care.

"In addition, there's a sense that our current system has run out of road. It's increasingly out of step with the needs of an ageing population and the resultant impact on the NHS is so severe that something has to change."

"Today and every day, about 14,000 older people are occupying hospital beds when they are medically fit to leave, and it's often because of a lack of social care for them at home," she added.

"Think what a difference it would make to the NHS, as well as to millions of older and disabled people and their families, if we had a social care system we could all rely on, one fit for the needs of today.

"That's definitely a prize worth having."

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