Adult Social Care recommends that you obtain Independent Financial, Welfare Benefits and Legal Advice before you make major decisions about your care and support or ways to pay for it, especially if you are thinking about making major decisions such as moving into residential or nursing care.

Where to find advice and information

You can find advice from the following sources:

• Welfare Benefits:

You may be entitled to Welfare Benefits to help pay for your care and  support costs depending on your personal and financial circumstances.  For information please go to the GOV.UK website.

• Pensions:

You can get impartial advice and information about your pension options from a free government service Pension Wise

• Personal Legal and Financial Advice: 

You may also want to talk to a Solicitor or Financial Adviser when considering your options.  Always make sure that the service or person that you use is suitably qualified or specialist for the type of advice you need.

Some Financial Advice can only be given by providers regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) this is called Regulated Financial Advice and is listed in the following table.

Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) to allow someone to help you or make decisions on your behalf 

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document that lets you (the ‘donor’) appoint one or more people (known as ‘attorneys’) to help you make decisions or to make decisions on your behalf.

This gives you more control over what happens to you if you have an accident or an illness and cannot make your own decisions (you ‘lack mental capacity’).

• You can do this yourself  on the GOV.UK website "Make, register or end a lasting power of attorney" 
• You can ask a financial adviser or a solicitor to help you set this up (they may charge a fee for this)