This was not an easy post to write, but has been on my mind for a while. Social care recently made the news due to the possible collapse of Southern Cross, which cares for 31,000 frail elderly people in 750 homes around the country. Prior to that story breaking, I suspect much of the public knew little about how social care works in this country, unless they needed to ask for it. The government's online portal Directgov largely bundles social care into its 'Disabled People' section, but its remit is wider than that. As well as the disabled, care should be available to all other vulnerable people who need it: the elderly, children, even whole families. The responsibility for this lies with upper tier (county) and unitary councils, not the National Health Service. However practically all councils have contracted out elements of care to the private sector, for example paying for elderly people to stay in private care homes like those run by Southern Cross.
The British population is an ageing one. Government statistics state that between 1984 and 2009 the number of people aged 65 and over in the UK increased by 20% to 10.1 million. In 2009, 16% cent of the population were aged 65 and over. The number of people aged 85 and over more than doubled over the same period to 1.4 million and the percentage aged under 16 fell from 21 per cent to 19 per cent. People are living longer, which is cause for celebration. However, the public sector is not keeping pace with demographic change. It is inevitable that as the population ages, the cost of social care for the elderly will rise. It is already one of the largest chunks of county council expenditure, generally second only to education provision.
To date, the government's approach to social care strikes me as disgracefully negligent. The Department of Communities and Local Government took the largest budget cut of any government department in the Spending Review; their administration and programme budget reduced by 51% over three years and their capital budget by 74%. This is the department that funds local government, and naturally the cuts were passed on. Cambridgeshire County Council, for example, needs to cut £116 million from its budget in five years, including cutting 25% of social care funding. Yet Communities and Local Government takes no responsibility for social care, as it ostensibly belongs to the Department of Health. Unless I've misunderstood somehow, having completely seperate government departments funding and setting policy for such an important service is incredibly dangerous and counterproductive. CLG's sudden reductions in grants to local councils are putting vulnerable people in need of social care at great risk.
That's the national picture, horrifying in a dry statistical way. Contrast this with a personal experience. My Grandfather was born in 1920 and worked for the National Health Service as an administrator from the end of the Second World War until his retirement. He is 91 years old and my Grandmother, who is 85 years old, can no longer care for him, as she has been doing for many years. He is incontinent, can barely walk even with a frame, and has dementia. He was taken into hospital three months ago with an infection and has remained there since. The infection has cleared up, but the frailties of 91 years cannot be cured. The county council's social services have determined that my Grandmother cannot take care of him alone and he needs overnight care. However the county council do not provide overnight care at home. Whether this is a long-standing policy or a recent cut I'm unsure, but the result is that my Grandfather needs a place in a nursing home.
All the affordable care homes within a reasonable distance are full and have waiting lists, leaving my Grandfather in hospital limbo. He cannot be discharged as he cannot be cared for at home, so for the past few months he has been a textbook bed-blocker. Although he is generally quite content, this is an extremely upsetting and difficult situation for my family. My Grandfather does not need to be in hospital, but there is an acute shortage of the kind of care that he does need.
This is the reality of social care for the elderly today. There aren't enough places in nursing homes for people that need them. Even when places are available, quality of care is variable and sometimes totally disgraceful. Southern Cross demonstrates the ugly side of privatisation - when companies fail their customers suffer. A public service responsible for the lives and wellbeing of the frail elderly should never be allowed to fail. It should not be the case that you can only have a comfortable, secure old age if you can pay at least £500 a week for the privilege. I am ashamed that I didn't realise how bad things had become, and how much they may worsen as cuts continue, until my Grandfather needed care.
I was utterly sickened by Vince Cable's statement that the government wouldn't consider bailing out Southern Cross. Eight hundred and fifty billion pounds was spent bailing out the banks. £850,000,000,000. It was apparently worth propping them up despite their refusal to reform, but putting £230,000,000 towards the care of 31,000 of Britain's most vulnerable people is considered unreasonable. To put that in the clearest possible terms, the rent bill that Southern Cross is struggling to pay is less than 0.03% of the cost of the bank bailout. Southern Cross clearly acted in a financially irresponsible manner; so did the banks. But banking is not an essential public service, and care of the elderly is. I defy Vince Cable to look into the eyes of a ninety-one year old man and tell him that care homes don't deserve a bailout. I defy him to look into my eyes, the eyes of anyone with a frail elderly relative that they love, and say that care homes can be allowed to go bankrupt. Why should Vince Cable even make such a statement? He is Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. How does that position give him the authority to talk about care of the elderly?
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights recently criticised the UK's privatised social care model for failing the most vulnerable, which was reported with unusual forthrightness in The Telegraph. The government cannot continue to ignore social care and treat it as purely a problem for local councils. Major reform and investment are needed. As a society we need to face up to old age and give the elderly the care and dignity that they deserve. This is not a party political issue and there is no question of whether we can afford to care for our older generations. It is our fundamental responsibility as a society to do so.
I love my Grandfather and have so much to be grateful to him for. He helped to instill in me a social conscience and awareness of the importance of learning from history. He deserves so much better than his current situation and it makes me very angry that there's little I can do to improve it. Even if a care home place does finally turn up for him, it's incredibly worrying to think that he might get poor care or that the home could go bankrupt. At least my Grandfather has a wife, children, and grandchildren who love him very much and are doing our best to get him what he needs. I hardly dare think of how frail elderly people with distant or disinterested relatives, or no-one at all, cope with the current system.
National action is needed now to save social care from collapse, but I fear that the current government will continue to put austerity first. The Coalition insists that cutting public spending is their absolute priority. I disagree with this for many reasons, but what it really boils down to is that I think human rights are more important than the mirage of What Is Best For The Economy. Comfort and dignity in the last years of your life are rights, not products. In a country as rich as the UK this should go without saying. My Grandfather and his generation were my age when the government brought the welfare state into being. He worked throughout his life with the belief that the government would take care of him in his old age if he needed it. It's despicable to take away that safety net now that he does need it and no longer has the ability to fight for it. Those of us who can stand up for the right of the elderly to be cared for must do so. Not just for those who need it now, but to secure our own future wellbeing.
