Elderly 'let down' by Labour

THE Government has "let down" elderly people who are forced to sell their homes to fund care later in life, new Health Secretary Andy Burnham has admitted as he prepares to unveil a radical overhaul of the system.

The social care system is creaking under the pressure of an ageing population, with the Westcountry having one of the highest proportions of elderly people in the country.

Councils in the region have warned of the drain on resources for providing adult care at a time when budgets are already overstretched.

One in five people in Devon and Cornwall is over 65, with experts predicting a sharp increase in demand on the services and resources in the next two decades.

Click here to read Matt Chorley's latest blog

Charities for the elderly have called for a fairer system to prevent people having to sell their much-loved homes to pay for care.

Anyone with assets of more than £22,250 has to pay for their care home place.

Mr Burnham told the WMN: "I don't think the status quo is satisfactory. It lets down lots of older people and their families in that, if you are unfortunate enough to suffer severely and have high care needs, you can end up losing a lot of what you have worked all your life for."

Speaking ahead of the launch this week of a Green Paper on options for reform, he added it was a "complex" issue because "there isn't money growing on trees".

Several ideas will be put forward in the document, with the hope of securing cross-party consensus on the long-term treatment of the elderly. Ideas which have been floated already include a compulsory insurance scheme to which people contribute during their working lives, or allowing people to make a one-off payment – either up front or from their estate when they die – which would meet all their needs.

The Government's paper this week will not contain firm proposals for legislation but options for consultation.

"I believe passionately that we can do better for older people," said Mr Burnham. "If we are just to stick to the status quo, looking at all of the pressures on society with an ageing population, we face the prospect of the budget having to go even further to provide for more people, and that's not a great prospect.

"The way a country looks after its older people says a lot about the kind of country that it is."

However, the Conservatives have been critical of the Government for not tackling the problem during 12 years in power.

Former Tory Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell said Labour's policy on the funding of long-term care was "accurately summarised as being to procrastinate and to delay".

He pointed to a speech by Tony Blair in October 1997 in which he promised action on the issue.

In 2007, 18.8 per cent of people in the wider South West were aged 65 or older, compared with 16 per cent for England as a whole.

It is projected that these percentages will have risen to 24 per cent for the South West, adding to demand for social care. And one million more people are expected to live in the South West by 2026, adding even more to the problems.