LONDON UK /
Mail Online / Society / May 8, 2012
By
Dominique Jackson
The parallel universe of geriatric
care is not somewhere most people visit willingly, nor regularly, if
they can help it. Most of us cannot even begin to imagine the burgeoning
twilight universe which exists alongside ours. After all, the care
system only really hits the headlines when brave whistle blowers expose
particularly shocking cases of neglect and abuse.
 |
| This is a terrifying indictment of how poorly we value the achievements
of the older generation and of how quickly and how conveniently we
forget the huge debt we owe them |
I
am not quite sure why most of us choose to remain so blinkered about
the crisis in social care? After all, we are all going to get old one
day; thus, someone, somewhere is probably going to have to help look
after us and somehow, that care is going to have to be paid for.
Today’s
open letter, begging the Prime Minister to open his eyes to the care
crisis, is signed by 78 charities and campaign groups, who are all
working on the grim, often fraught and woefully under-funded frontline
of care provision for the frail, elderly, disabled and otherwise most
vulnerable members of society. They know all too well what they are
talking about.
Surely, social care is the litmus
test of a civilised society? The current crisis, both in funding and
provision, is a terrifying indictment of how poorly we value the
achievements of the older generation and of how quickly and how
conveniently we forget the huge debt we owe them.
I
sincerely hope that Mr Cameron takes a few minutes off from his busy
day out with Mr Clegg, relaunching the aims of the coalition from a
factory in Essex. I hope he takes enough time to read this important
letter, to digest what it means and to decide to take some action.
Two
years ago, when Messrs Clegg and Cameron stood side by side in the
Downing Street Rose Garden, charities and the elderly lobby felt they
had some cause for optimism. The coalition soon published a white paper
on health care reform which promised “a sustainable legal and financial
framework for adult social care” by the second session of parliament.
Yet today we are frustratingly no
further on and the government looks increasingly out of touch with its
growing numbers of elderly, and vocal, voters in the wake of the “Granny
Tax” debacle.
The
Queen’s Speech tomorrow is expected to include a vague nod to the
importance of social care reform, but there will be no bill brought
forward in this session. Thus, we have no hope of any realistic overhaul
in long term elderly care for at least another two years.
This
is two years too long for a shocking majority of elderly people and
their family members, many of whom work as unpaid carers, and a huge
number of whom are currently struggling to fund, or even to find,
appropriate and adequate support and care.
Tens
of thousands of elderly pensioners are forced to sell their homes to
pay for residential care. Many more thousands of senior citizens who do
not have that option are trapped in the postcode lottery of care I wrote
about on this forum only last week when I highlighted the plight of
99-year-old war veteran and dementia patient Bill Sandford, unable to
move close to his daughter and her family because of a shortfall in
local council funding.
The
Commission on Funding of Care and Support, chaired by economist Andrew
Dilnot, called for a limited liability model of social insurance, in
which any individual’s liability for the cost of care would be capped at
around £35,000, with the state coming in at this threshold.
However,
implementing Dilnot’s proposals has reportedly been held up by rows
within the Treasury over how to pay for the reforms. A much delayed
White Paper on long term care will finally appear next month but is
expected to focus mainly on issues such as improving service quality,
safeguarding vulnerable patients and on personal budgets to allow
greater freedom of choice. How on earth we are expected to pay for all
of this is not expected to be directly addressed at all.
This is particularly bad news for
those of our poorest senior citizens. Two thirds of the 400,000
pensioners in the country’s care homes are funded by the state and
recent cuts to council funding have led inevitably to a drop in levels
of staffing, recruitment criteria, provision of training and thus in
standards of care.
A
report on transforming social care for the poorest elderly people from
the Centre for Social Justice think tank is also published today. It
argues that the current means-tested system of funding is at breaking
point and that the proposed Dilnot reforms ignore the plight of the war
time generation who simply do not have any assets to sell.
The
CSJ, which was established by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan
Smith while he was in opposition, hopes its findings may influence the
politicians who are considering their response to Dilnot in cross-party
talks ahead of the White Paper’s appearance in June.
All this research and all these
recommendations are all very well but what we really need now is some
joined-up thinking and some immediate action. We need an open and honest
debate about the needs of the elderly and we should all, every single
one of us, be involved. After all, we will all be elderly one day.
Our
population is ageing and ageing fast. Almost 20 per cent, 11.8 million,
of us are now over the retirement age. Of these, 1.3 million are
already over the age of 85. Our rapidly ageing population means swiftly
rising rates of dementia and growing legions of frail and vulnerable
seniors, who are, whether they like it or not, dependent on younger
generations.
It
should not have to fall to a coalition of charities to have to
highlight the scale and urgency of the challenge of social care reform
but now that they have bravely brought the debate back into the
headlines, it is high time for the government to wake up to this
demographic time bomb and act.
© Associated Newspapers Ltd
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