The £86,000 Care Cap: What Happened and What Applies Now

The Health and Care Act 2022 built a statutory framework for a lifetime cap on personal care costs, implementing a proposal the Dilnot Commission first made in 2011. As announced in September 2021 it would have worked like this:

• An individual would pay up to £86,000 towards their personal care over their lifetime, after which the local authority would meet those costs.
• The means-test thresholds would rise sharply — the upper capital limit from £23,250 to £100,000, and the lower limit from £14,250 to £20,000.
• "Daily living costs" in a care home — food, heating, accommodation — would not count towards the cap, and were to be fixed at around £200 a week.
• Progress towards the cap would be tracked through a council-held care account, using an independent personal budget set at the rate the council would itself have paid. Self-funders paying above that rate would have progressed towards the cap more slowly than their actual spending suggested.

That last point mattered more than it sounds. Because only the local authority equivalent rate counted, a self-funder in an expensive home could have spent well over £86,000 in real money before reaching the cap.

The reform was due to start in October 2023. In November 2022 it was deferred to October 2025, on the grounds that councils were not ready. On 29 July 2024, in her statement on the public spending inheritance, the Chancellor confirmed it would not go ahead at all, saying that "it will not be possible to take forward these charging reforms" and scoring a saving of over £1bn. The Department of Health and Social Care recorded the decision in its own statutory guidance the following September.

Two points of precision matter here, because they are widely got wrong:

• This was an abandonment, not a repeal. Section 15 of the Care Act 2014 is still on the statute book, marked prospective; section 166 of the Health and Care Act 2022 has never been commenced. Nothing was struck out — the switch was simply never flipped. This is why you will still find the cap described in the future tense on pages that were never revisited.
• The capital-limit increases fell with it. The rise to £100,000 was part of the same package and was never made. Regulation 12 of the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 still reads £23,250.

If you are planning around a cap, stop. There is no cap, no commencement date, and no announced successor.

Charging is governed by the Care Act 2014 and the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014. In England for 2026-27:

• Capital above £23,250 — you self-fund in full.
• Capital between £14,250 and £23,250 — the council contributes, but charges a "tariff income" of £1 a week for every £250 of capital above the lower limit.
• Capital below £14,250 — capital is disregarded, and you contribute from income instead, less a Personal Expenses Allowance of £31.80 a week.
• Your home — counted as capital in residential care after a mandatory 12-week disregard, unless a partner, a relative aged 60 or over, or a dependent child still lives there, in which case it is disregarded for as long as that continues. It is never counted for care in your own home.
• Income — most is counted; some is not, including the mobility components of DLA and PIP.
• Notional capital — assets given away to reduce a care charge are treated as still yours under the deprivation of assets rules.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland charge on different and generally more generous terms — see the jurisdiction variants below.

The absence of a cap falls hardest on homeowners with no partner remaining at home. A worked example:

• Mary is widowed, owns a house worth £300,000 and has £40,000 in savings. She develops dementia and moves into a care home at £1,200 a week, or £62,400 a year.
• The council means-tests her. With no partner in the property, the house counts as capital once the 12-week disregard ends. Her assessed capital is around £340,000.
• She self-funds. After roughly four years her capital has fallen below £23,250 — the house sold, the savings largely gone.
• The council then contributes, with a tariff income charged on what capital remains above £14,250.
• Her net outlay over those four years is somewhere around £250,000 to £280,000.

Under the cap her exposure would have been limited to £86,000 of personal care costs, reached in roughly two years. Without it, there is no ceiling other than the means test itself.

The mitigations that exist are real but modest: a deferred payment agreement so the house need not be sold during her lifetime, the property disregard where a qualifying relative remains, and — by far the most valuable — a proper NHS Continuing Healthcare screening.

The Casey Commission — the Independent Commission into Adult Social Care, chaired by Baroness Louise Casey — was announced on 3 January 2025, with terms of reference published that May. It was originally to report in two phases, the second not until 2028.

On 29 July 2026 the Prime Minister accelerated it, and the Commission is now expected to report by summer 2027. Cross-party talks with the other party leaders began the same day, and a ministerial group chaired by the Health and Social Care Secretary was established alongside a public consultation exercise.

What has not happened is any commitment to revive the cap. The Prime Minister's July 2026 announcement, the accompanying materials and the department's own commentary make no mention of the £86,000 cap, the charging reforms or the capital limits. There is no bill before Parliament on care charging.

Treat any reform as years away and uncertain in shape. Do not defer a decision that needs making now — a lasting power of attorney, a deferred payment application, a CHC assessment — in the hope of it.

Six things worth doing regardless of what any commission recommends:

• Make both Lasting Powers of Attorney — one for property and financial affairs, one for health and welfare. Without them the family must apply to the Court of Protection, which is slow and expensive. The Office of the Public Guardian charges £82 per LPA, with remission available on low income.
• Ask for a CHC assessment where the primary need is a health need. NHS Continuing Healthcare is fully funded and not means-tested at all. It is frequently overlooked, and refusals are worth appealing.
• Consider a deferred payment agreement so the council funds care against the eventual value of the property, rather than forcing a sale at speed.
• Claim Attendance Allowance — it is not means-tested, and worth £76.70 or £114.60 a week. It is disregarded as income in a residential care assessment.
• Understand top-up fees before agreeing to one. A third party can pay the difference for a more expensive home, but the council must first offer a genuine option at its own rate, and the resident's protected capital can never be used.
• Use the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for disputes about a council's charging decision. It is free, and it upholds a substantial share of care-charging complaints.