A CAP on the amount elderly people will have to pay for residential care has been set so high that most will die before reaching it, union GMB warned yesterday.

The government has decided that from April 2016 elderly people must cough up the first £72,000 of the cost of their care.

It is more than double the £35,000 recommended in 2011 by the Commission on Funding of Care and Support.

The union said that 90 per cent of care residents would die before paying off the £72,000.

Even those who do would still have to pay “hotel costs” of around £230 a week towards food and accommodation.

GMB said it would take an average of four years and nine months for a care resident in England to reach the cap.

“The complete inadequacy of the government’s cap on eligible care fees is laid bare for all to see,” said GMB national officer Justin Bowden.

“This is a betrayal of hundreds of thousands of citizens who contributed to this country all their working lives and were promised that a cradle-to-grave system of care would be there if they needed it, free at the point of use.

“At their most vulnerable and needy, they are expected to empty their hard-earned savings or sell their houses long before reaching the cap.”

He called for an end to means-testing and capping.