Help shape the future of long-term care for older people
25 April 2007 | Niall Dickson, King's Fund; Julia Unwin, Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Michael Lake, Help the Aged; Gordon Lishman, Age Concern EnglandWe’re living longer, and as our population ages, demand for long-term care both at home and in residential settings is growing. By 2050 there will be twice as many people aged over 85 as there are now, and current estimates are that we will need to spend four times what we do now on long-term care.
Our present system of social care support is unsustainable. Without changes, older people will have to pay ever more out of their own pockets, including those on very modest incomes.
We need to act now to plan for the future.
That is why the Caring Choices partners are asking you to take part in a nationwide consultation on shaping future policy on long-term care for older people.
Through this website – and a series of events across England and Scotland over the next seven months – the Caring Choices partners are asking older people, carers and individuals working in long-term care to consider strategies for better care and give their views on how it could be funded in a way that is fair and equitable.
We want discussions to build on recent reports on the long-term care system, including the King’s Fund’s review of social care funding and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s work on the future of long-term care. We believe a considered debate about roles, responsibilities and risks – and the trade-offs we are prepared to make as individuals and as a society – could make a significant contribution to policy development in this important area.
This website will act as a central hub for the debate, offering opinion pieces by experts on long-term care, reports of the discussions at regional events, and giving you the opportunity to provide your comments and join the debate.
Niall Dickson is Chief Executive of the King’s Fund; Julia Unwin CBE is Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Michael Lake is Director General of Help the Aged; Gordon Lishman CBE is Director General of Age Concern England.
April 29th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I’ve been searching the web on behalf of my elderly mother resident in the UK and many UK aged-care websites, including the “Caring Choices” site, for any information at all on reverse mortgages for the elderly in the UK. Having now spent about three hours with next to no success whatsoever, I am slowly coming to the incredulous conclusion that the things simply don’t exist in the UK – or if they do exist they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Can this really be true? There appears to be nothing at all on the “Caring Choices” website – the term “reverse mortgage” returns nothing. Surely, I’m missing something here? We left the UK in 1992. Has nothing improved in the last fifteen years? (There was certainly plenty of rubbish everywhere, vandalism and apathy when I was back there last year).
Reverse mortgages are not for everyone its true. But they are well established in the US and even here in Oz with its paltry twenty million people. How can the elderly in the UK not even have the option of a reverse mortgage? It seems absurd. My wife and I were looking at returning to the UK some day – but having spent the formative years of my life in institutions (they were called boarding schools back then) the thought of dying in an institution, whether it be a hospital or a nursing home fills me with horror. Not to be able to die at home for me is the worst nightmare imaginable. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying I would rather put a bullet in my head than find myself back in an institution again at the end of my life. (Anyone who has never suffered the horrors of boarding school probably won’t understand why I feel so strongly about this).
Why isn’t “Caring Choices” in the UK doing more to advocate the option of reverse mortgages for the UK aged that want them? Whilst not for everyone, they are one of the few ways of allowing a person of limited income who owns their own home to afford to die at home. Surely this cannot be a bad thing?
April 29th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Update- in the UK, what’s called “reverse mortgages” in the US and here in Oz seem to be a subcategory of what is generally referred to as “equity release schemes”. I apologise for my inadequate mastery of the current UK terminology before commenting. Nevertheless, call them what you may, perhaps more could be done on this website and others to lay out in detail the pros and cons in the UK of such schemes? (I’ve now discovered that the UK body “Age Concern” publishes a paper guide to equity release schemes – but nine quid (including p&p to the UK) seems a bit steep for just over a 100 pages that is likely to need replacing each tax year). (Also, as a part-time Oz based peripatetic carer of a UK resident, I need electronic data – not paper based.)
May 1st, 2007 at 9:28 am
Age Concern also publishes a free factsheet on equity release, which can be found on our website – http://www.ageconcern.org.uk – along with free information materials on a wide range of other issues affecting older people.
Link to equity release factsheet:
http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/fs12.asp
July 3rd, 2007 at 5:45 pm
The current trend towards multi-bedded ‘hotel style’care homes is contributing to the increasing costs of care. Whilst front-line care staff themselves are paid poorly, large care`homes require a top-heavy ( in cost terms) management structure. The quality of the building has very little to do with the quality of care. The good work which was done in the early 90’s when the long stay wards for older people were closed seems to have been reversed by the Care Standards Act. Post 2000 small homes closed , to be replaced by big impersonal units. This trend is particularly worrying for people with dementia who thrive better in well-run, small, family sized units. The prevalence of difficult behaviour increases in large impersonal units, as is known from research done 30 years ago by people like Kitwood.
Money should be redirected from the private companies and Housing Societies, who are empire building out of the care of older people, into a locally provided and funded comprehensive network of patch based home care. If planned properly this could support family carers and be integral to the life of a community.