The short answer
- Most families combine two or three sourcesA benefit, a council contribution or NHS funding, and some of your own money, stacked together, rather than one route covering everything.
- The NHS pays for everything if it agreesNHS Continuing Healthcare is not means-tested. It usually needs severe or complex health needs, not just a condition that has become hard to manage.
- Below £23,250 in savings, the council pays a shareThe council must assess anyone who appears to need care, and a direct payment lets you choose the carer with its contribution.
- Live-in care suits equity release better than a care home move doesBecause your relative keeps living in the house, the loan is not usually called in the way it is when somebody moves into residential care.
Rules are for England. Figures are 2026/27, from gov.uk and the Equity Release Council, checked 4 September 2026.
The short answer
What you end up paying towards a live-in week depends on two things
Whether the NHS or the council pays anything comes down to the kind of needs involved and what your relative has in savings. Find the situation below that sounds like yours.
Situation 1
NHS Continuing Healthcare is agreed
The NHS pays the whole live-in care package through a personal health budget, so you still choose the carer, whatever your relative has in savings.
What you pay
£0 towards the care
Situation 2
Savings below £14,250
Savings are ignored completely below this line. The council works out a contribution from income alone through a financial assessment, and it can cover the whole assessed cost.
What you pay
Often nothing, or a small amount
Situation 3
Savings between £14,250 and £23,250
The council adds a small amount of assumed income for the savings in this band on top of actual income, then works out a share. Ask for it as a direct payment if you want to choose the carer yourself.
What you pay
A partial contribution
Situation 4
Savings above £23,250
You pay the full cost. Attendance Allowance, worth up to £5,960 a year if it is granted, comes off that bill whatever your relative's savings are.
What you pay
£1,050 to £1,400 a week
Situation 5
Paying from the home rather than the bank
Equity release or an immediate needs annuity can fund the same weekly cost without your relative spending down savings or selling the house now. The section below covers both.
What you pay
The same weekly figure, from a different source
Attendance Allowance sits underneath every row on this ladder: it is worth claiming whatever else is happening, because it is not means-tested and it reduces the bill whichever route pays the rest. The two assessments that decide the top of the ladder, an NHS Continuing Healthcare checklist and a council care needs assessment, are both free and can run alongside each other, so it is worth asking for both if there is any doubt rather than guessing which applies. What does fully funded care mean? sets the two out side by side in more depth.
NHS and council funding
When the state pays some or all of a live-in week
These are the only two routes that can cover the whole cost. Neither is guaranteed, and getting a live-in carer funded, rather than a cheaper alternative, is often its own conversation on top of the eligibility one.
| NHS Continuing Healthcare | Council funding | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Needs that are mainly about health: complex, intense or unpredictable, not the diagnosis or condition itself | Eligible care needs, with savings under £23,250 counted in the means test |
| Means-tested | ||
| What it pays for a live-in carer | The whole weekly cost, as a personal health budget, so you still choose the carer | A contribution, or the whole assessed cost below the lower threshold, paid as a direct payment if you ask for one |
| Who decides | An NHS team of at least 2 professionals, usually within 28 days of a full assessment | Adult social care, on a care needs assessment followed by a financial assessment |
| How to ask | Ask the GP, a hospital discharge team or a social worker for the Continuing Healthcare checklist, by name | Ask adult social care for a care needs assessment |
Who it is for
- NHS Continuing Healthcare
- Needs that are mainly about health: complex, intense or unpredictable, not the diagnosis or condition itself
- Council funding
- Eligible care needs, with savings under £23,250 counted in the means test
Means-tested
- NHS Continuing Healthcare
- Council funding
What it pays for a live-in carer
- NHS Continuing Healthcare
- The whole weekly cost, as a personal health budget, so you still choose the carer
- Council funding
- A contribution, or the whole assessed cost below the lower threshold, paid as a direct payment if you ask for one
Who decides
- NHS Continuing Healthcare
- An NHS team of at least 2 professionals, usually within 28 days of a full assessment
- Council funding
- Adult social care, on a care needs assessment followed by a financial assessment
How to ask
- NHS Continuing Healthcare
- Ask the GP, a hospital discharge team or a social worker for the Continuing Healthcare checklist, by name
- Council funding
- Ask adult social care for a care needs assessment
National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and the Care Act 2014, checked 4 September 2026.
A live-in carer is not the automatic outcome of either assessment. A care home is often what gets offered first because it is simpler for a council to cost, and the right to top up a more expensive setting that exists for care homes does not extend to home care in the same way. The case for a live-in carer instead is made through the written care and support plan, on the strength of the needs recorded and the council's duty to promote wellbeing and independence. Local authority funding for care at home works through the eligibility test and the means test in full, and NHS Continuing Healthcare explains the twelve areas of need the NHS assessment scores against and how to challenge a refusal.
Money that is not means-tested
Two benefits that help regardless of savings
Neither of these needs an assessment of care needs first, and neither depends on what your relative has saved. Both are worth claiming alongside whatever else is happening with the council or the NHS.
Attendance Allowance continues if council funding starts, though it usually stops if NHS Continuing Healthcare later funds a permanent place in a nursing home; it is unaffected by live-in care at home. Neither benefit is close to covering a live-in carer's cost on its own, but both reduce the figure the rest of this guide is about closing. Can my mum pay me to care for her? covers the related question of being paid by your own relative to be their live-in carer yourself, rather than hiring somebody.
Your home or a lump sum
Paying without spending down savings: equity release and immediate needs annuities
If your relative is above the council's savings threshold, or you want to keep some savings back, there are two regulated ways to pay for live-in care that do not mean spending the bank balance directly.
Two ways to pay from wealth rather than income
| Equity release | Immediate needs annuity | |
|---|---|---|
| What it uses | The home's value now, without selling it | A lump sum of savings, paid to an insurer |
| What you get | A cash lump sum or regular payments, as a loan against the home or a sale of part of it | A guaranteed weekly income for the rest of your relative's life |
| Best suited to | Care that happens at home, since the loan is not usually called in while your relative still lives there | A family who wants certainty and has a lump sum they are prepared to commit |
| The catch | Interest compounds on a lifetime mortgage and reduces what is left for the estate; a home reversion plan sells part of the home below its market value | The money cannot be returned after the cooling-off period, and the tax-free treatment is written around payments to a registered care provider |
What it uses
- Equity release
- The home's value now, without selling it
- Immediate needs annuity
- A lump sum of savings, paid to an insurer
What you get
- Equity release
- A cash lump sum or regular payments, as a loan against the home or a sale of part of it
- Immediate needs annuity
- A guaranteed weekly income for the rest of your relative's life
Best suited to
- Equity release
- Care that happens at home, since the loan is not usually called in while your relative still lives there
- Immediate needs annuity
- A family who wants certainty and has a lump sum they are prepared to commit
The catch
- Equity release
- Interest compounds on a lifetime mortgage and reduces what is left for the estate; a home reversion plan sells part of the home below its market value
- Immediate needs annuity
- The money cannot be returned after the cooling-off period, and the tax-free treatment is written around payments to a registered care provider
Equity Release Council and HMRC Insurance Policyholder Taxation Manual (IPTM6210), checked 4 September 2026.
Equity release comes in two forms. A lifetime mortgage is the more common one: a loan against the home with no monthly repayments, where interest rolls up and the loan is repaid, usually by selling the home, when your relative dies or moves permanently into a care home. A home reversion plan instead sells part or all of the home to a provider now, in exchange for a lump sum or an income and the right to live there rent-free for life. Both are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and must be arranged through a qualified adviser; the Society of Later Life Advisers lists advisers who specialise in this and in later-life lending generally.
An immediate needs annuity works differently: your relative pays an insurer a lump sum once, in exchange for a guaranteed weekly income for the rest of their life, calculated on their health and life expectancy at the time. Where the payments go directly to a registered care provider, they are paid free of tax under HMRC's rules.
Most families who reach this section are self-funding some or all of the cost regardless, at least at first, while an assessment is decided or because savings sit above the threshold. Self-funding care covers the options in full, and the cost of live-in care breaks down what a live-in week includes, so you know what the figure above is paying for.
How to start
The calls to make this week
Assessments and financial advice both take time, and none of them stop you looking at carers while you wait.
- 1
Work out the weekly figure
TodayLive-in care on PrimeCarers runs from £1,050 to £1,400 a week, more where needs are complex, with our fee included. Knowing this number is what turns the routes above from theory into a plan. - 2
Ask for both assessments
This weekRing the GP, memory clinic or hospital discharge team and ask for a Continuing Healthcare checklist by name. Separately, ring adult social care and ask for a care needs assessment. Neither has to wait for the other to finish. - 3
Ask for a direct payment or a personal health budget
Once agreedIf either assessment is successful, say you want to choose the carer rather than take whoever the council or NHS arranges. This is what lets the funding pay for a carer found through PrimeCarers. - 4
Get regulated advice before releasing equity or buying an annuity
If you are considering itBoth are significant, largely irreversible decisions. A SOLLA-accredited adviser has to explain the alternatives and the costs before either goes ahead. - 5
Look at live-in carers while you wait
Free to searchSearch by postcode to see who is available and what they charge. Every carer has an online interview, and an ID check, a right to work check and an enhanced DBS on the Update Service before they appear, and they are insured while they work. Looking is not a commitment.
Questions
Questions families ask about funding live-in care
Live-in care on PrimeCarers runs from £1,050 to £1,400 a week, our fee included, and more where needs are complex. NHS Continuing Healthcare can cover all of it. Council funding can cover a share, or all of it below the lower savings threshold. Attendance Allowance is worth up to £5,960 a year on top of either. The cost of live-in care breaks down what is included in that weekly figure.
Neither is automatic. A care home is often what gets offered first because it is simpler to cost, and there is no formal right to a live-in carer the way there is a right to top up a care home place. The case for staying at home with a live-in carer is made through the written care and support plan, on the strength of the eligible needs recorded and the wish to remain at home, and it is worth making explicitly rather than waiting to be offered it.
No, but it helps regardless of what else is happening. It is not means-tested, so it is paid whatever your relative has saved, and it continues if council funding starts. On its own it covers a fraction of a live-in week rather than the whole of it. Attendance Allowance covers who qualifies and how to claim.
A lifetime mortgage typically becomes repayable when your relative dies or moves permanently into residential care, which usually means the home is sold to settle it. This is why equity release suits live-in care at home better than a care home move: while your relative keeps living in the house, the loan is not called in.
It suits a family who wants certainty over a rising bill and has a lump sum they are prepared to commit, because the income is guaranteed for life once bought. It is not right for everyone: the payment cannot be returned after the cooling-off period, and the price reflects the insurer’s view of your relative’s life expectancy at the time, so it needs advice rather than a decision made alone.
Sometimes, depending on the funding route and your relationship. A council direct payment can sometimes pay a relative who lives elsewhere, though rarely one in the same household unless the council agrees it is necessary. Can my mum pay me to care for her? covers the tax, Carer’s Allowance and council rules involved.
Tell the council if savings are falling towards the threshold; the financial assessment can be redone rather than waiting for the annual review. A care and support plan is reviewed within a few weeks of starting and then at least yearly, and you can ask for a review sooner if your relative’s needs change. Nothing about the funding is fixed once it is agreed.