A new study carried out by equity release company Age Partnership suggests that more than half (57 per cent) of retired Britons are worried about the rising costs of elderly care and the fact that only limited funding is available to them.
The research quizzed UK adults of all ages and from all backgrounds in a bid to determine whether the UK is ‘retirement ready’.
It found that 68 per cent of respondents were planning on relying predominantly on their state pension to fund their retirement.
However, with the basic state pension paying just £122.30 per week, this falls way short of the £208 per week average that a typical retiree ‘lives off’, the report found.
In light of this, the average pensioner will need to find an additional £340 every single month before care home fees and other costs are even taken into account.
According to the report, there were 1.31 million new requests for social care support from older people in the 2015/16 financial year – but only 47 per cent of people were granted some form of social care assistance.
It found that the vast majority of Britons (57 per cent) were worried that they would experience difficulties funding care home fees when they get older, while a further 85 per cent had not sought any specialist advice in relation to care home fees and how these might be factored into the overall cost of their retirement.