Several industry players have voiced concern over failures of perception raised by the Government announcement of a cap on long term care fees.
While welcoming a cap, Partnership cautioned that the cap will only apply to the "personal social care" element, which is typically a third of all residential care costs, and it will be subject to both eligibility criteria and the prevailing local authority rate.
The cap will not cover general living expenses (estimated at roughly £7,000-£10,000 a year), or any "hotel" costs above the rate paid for by their local authority.
It added that it is essential that people get relevant information and advice, and as part of this it must include specialist care fees advice.
Chris Horlick, Managing Director of Care at Partnership said "It is essential that people, particularly self funders who form the majority of people in the adult social care system, are aware that it is not a complete cap on all care costs and therefore get specialist care fees advice at the earliest opportunity in order to find appropriate solutions to pay for their care costs."
Symponia, the professional body for care fees planning advisers also welcomed the cap, but claimed the threshold in still too low to benefit the majority of home owners, countrywide and that consumers will be confused.
Janet Davies, joint founder and managing director for Symponia said: "We hope the government will be more open and transparent about exactly what the state will really pay for.
"At the moment, and based on Jeremy Hunt's words, consumers are being misled into thinking that once they have spent £75,000 on care costs, their Local Authority will step in and pick up the entire bill. This is simply not the case.
"Symponia believes that this reform should galvanise product providers, giving them the confidence to be truly innovative. In addition, we believe that today's reform will stimulate the advice market as people will want to plan ahead and take charge of their own care destiny."
Peter Barnett, a policy adviser in the House of Lords and an advisory board member of The Society of Later Life Advisers, was less optimistic on this point.
"The question here from adviser's point of view is whether this move will see pre funded products emerge on the market. Personally I cannot see this happening, it's been tried, and suspect funding for long term care will be taken care of via the pension and long term savings markets," he said.
"This brings the RDR into the equation and will keep out advisers who would have sold into this market in terms of protection.
"Overall this announcement is a good start, although it is worth mentioning that the majority of those in care will not reach the cap amount."
