For some time, it has seemed that pensioners are at the bottom of the Government’s policy priority list. The recent announcement that social care reform – so desperately needed by most elderly and disabled people – has been kicked into the long grass again.
Setting up yet another long-term review and making clear no new funding will be available, means nothing will change.
After removing Winter Fuel Payments from millions of pensioners who struggle to make ends meet, this latest development is very troubling.
The UK care system is the biggest social policy failure of modern times. With an aging population and rising care costs, reforms were long overdue years ago.
Yet, with baby boomers already in retirement, we are back to square one. Social care remains riddled with the problems and injustices highlighted by past reviews and Commissions since the 1990s.
We don’t need yet another review. We need action.
Perhaps today’s politicians calculate that elderly and disabled people are unlikely to take to the streets to protest, and their families are too busy trying to look after their loved ones to fight.
The system abandons elderly people needing care. In 21st Century Britain, they face a lottery of later life illnesses. Those lucky enough never to need care pay nothing extra.
Those who become ill in the ‘right way’ such as with cancer, can have their care costs covered by the state.
But those whose health problems, like dementia, are classified as ‘social care’, are not covered by the NHS.
These people must pay all their own care costs, and also pay extra for people with no savings, who are supposedly funded by their council, because cash-strapped councils do not pay their care costs in full, the burden falls disproportionately on those who are struck by the ‘wrong’ illnesses.
Wouldn’t it be fairer for everyone to contribute something, to some kind of national care insurance scheme, to spread costs more evenly?
As the Government grapples with our failing health service, it should recognise that NHS and social care are two sides of the same coin.
Social care cuts over the years, removing early interventions and preventive measures, increase calls on GPs and NHS hospitals.
A national care service is needed to treat pensioners with dignity and respect, with all paying something towards it.
Constantly taking money from pensioners in our aging population is a stain on our country.
