Immediate needs annuities: Tackling the LTC conundrum

NHS Digital reported, for the year 2021-2022, local authorities spent £22bn on social care. According to the Office for National Statistics, from 1 March 2022 to 28 February 2023, there were an estimated 372,035 care home residents in England; of these, 37% (137,480) were self-funders. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) estimated as long ago as in 2017 that care home fees paid by ‘self-funders' are, on average, 41% higher than those paid by local authorities for places in the same care homes, and that a funding shortfall of £1bn a year exists across the UK because councils ar...