Key Retirement is linking up with live-in care provider Elder to increase the range of options for financial advisers supporting retired clients.

Elder provides advice on all aspects of live-in care including support on Social Services funding and is offering the Live-in Care Funding Plan through Key as part of its focus on making live-in care available to more customers.

Live-in care offered by Elder, which has a nationwide network of carers, includes 24-hour care, home help support and specialist dementia care as well as advice and information.

Key says that about 873,500 people receive home care at present with local authorities and Health and Social Care Trusts providing around £3.83 billion of the total £4.62 billion spent a year on domiciliary care in the UK. This leaves a funding gap for pensioners needing home care of more than £700 million a year.

Key adds that around 50,000 pensioners had to sell their homes last year to pay for residential care even though 97% of people say they don’t want to move into a care home in old age.

The retirement provider’s link with Elder will mean lifetime mortgages, a type of equity release scheme, will be offered as part of the range of options to enable retired homeowners to remain in their house and retain their independence, it says. Advisers can access support through equity release referral service Key Partnerships.

Dean Mirfin, chief product officer at Key Retirement, said: “For far too long live-in care has been for the wealthy even though millions of pensioners with equity tied up in their homes could fund live-in care through equity release. We are pleased to be working with Elder to provide expert advice to enable older homeowners to receive valuable live-in-care at home.”

Pete Dowds, co-founder of Elder, said: “Most of us dread the idea of going to a care home and, even worse, the idea of paying as much as £2,000 a week for the privilege.

“We want live-in care, a service that was historically exclusive, to be available to all. It can usually be funded more simply than people realise and we believe the market for utilising home equity in this way is huge.”

Elder estimates live-in care costs around £770 a week while pensioners funding residential care privately can pay as much as £2,000 a week. The median admission period to death for a residential care home customer is 15 months.

Government data shows the average 65-year-old can expect to live for 18-and-a-half years but will only be in good health for 10.3 years.