Political parties have spent years talking to each other, off and on, about finding an agreed system of social care. They all claim they want a system they all accept, unlike other policy areas. They fail to find one, with Labour, Conservative and coalition governments backing the existing system in the absence of agreement on change.
There are a number of different issues and aims to consider. Most people wanting reform are not considering the needs of those in care , but are considering who pays the bills. They think taxpayers should pay more and the people in care should pay less so their families can inherit more.
Social care is largely administered for the state by local government. The NHS is a national service, so there are border  disputes over who needs medical care in a hospital and who should be discharged to a care home  with GP support. Healthcare and  stays in hospital are free for all whilst social  care has to be paid  for if you have savings and or a private pension on top of the state pension. Councils pay for those without means, arguing over the  adequacy of government grant to do so.
The current system rests on a central distinction between hotel services, lodging and food provided by a care home which remain an individual responsibility, and medical services which are paid for by taxpayers. There is a good case to make that it would be neither affordable nor fairmotivated workforce.  to provide full hotel style board and bed in a care home free whilst other elderly or disabled have to pay  for  their own home, heat and meals. Both those at homes and those in care homes should only have the bills paid if they lack capital and additional income. The review needs to consider the current system as a serious runner to continue with a few tweaks.The important issues are quality of care and how to recruit a skilled and
January 4, 2025
Good morning.
Over the Christmas period both of my elderly neighbours fell ill. One currently remains in hospital and will make a return in the next week or two whilst the other recovered but had to go into local care at a cost of ÂŁ1,000 per week. And that is considered cheap ! They are concerned that, if this were to continue for any great length of time, they would be forced to sell their home.
Whenever I hear that government is being asked to pick up the cost of care I ask myself, “What did we do BEFORE this became an accepted possibility?”
To answer my own question, it was family. The elderly parents often stayed with one or other of the children. But since women were encouraged to go out to work fulltime, and started to have fewer babies leading to population decline we have moved from and old and trusted model for elderly care to one where the State once again intervenes and pays for, adding to the debt and tax burden and thereby making it harder for those to afford a home and a family life. Both couples having to work in order to pay the bills etc.
It is time that we recognise that a woman’s primary role to produce the next generation and carer for elderly relatives rather than a ‘work unit’ in the Karl Marx mould. Trouble is, there are few willing to see and understand this much less that argue for a return to traditional ways.
January 4, 2025
Mark your observation is correct. The way of life people have been herded into has affected more than care for the elderly, it has destroyed a whole social structure, the family, replacing it with the social decay of drugs and knife crime and much else designed to destroy society. It has also created a extensive government social industry whose total inadequacy has no effect on stemming the decay. Ministers, only yesterday were running in circles to avoid the consequences of what they have created and presided over for many years. Only a Minister would wish to sweep it under someone elses carpet.
January 4, 2025
You are right that social change has undermined traditional family care. Politicians have over promised and will under deliver on the existing pension and benefits commitments they have promised. Social care is another undeliverable commitment which they want to avoid by kicking the can down the road with yet another enquiry. Unfortunately this Labour government has adopted economic, tax and regulatory policies which will only serve to accelerate the bankruptcy of the UK. There is no viable solution to the social care problem in sight.
January 4, 2025
Well not always the “woman” who should do the caring. One problem is that ever often the children live miles away or over seas. Also often two salaries are needed by the children to pay the mortgage and eat. Also they pay so much tax and NI that they feel the government should deal with this and not them.
What I have often seen is hospitals trying to push patients home and on to social services (when they are really to ill to go home) and visa versa with patient sent back and forth. Two arms or government arguing between themselves. Same for mentally ill younger patients often a danger to the public but just pushed back into the community.
January 4, 2025
LL
I cared for my late mother in her last years because my sister, who ironically works in the care industry, could not.
Which is EXACTLY what has happened to my elderly neighbours.
We need to have a proper debate in this country. With Labour promising that ‘anyone’ who arrives here shall have the automatic right to benefits etc this is going to be a massive draw for immigrants.
January 4, 2025
Indeed. If illegal immigrants are given 4* Hotels, free food, health, education, dental care, mobiles and pocket money why can’t old English people in need of care? Time for a party who will look after our own first before they give away my taxes to foreigners and foreign causes. We desperately need Reform.
January 4, 2025
From the Telegraph:- Drivers hit with record ÂŁ142m in fines for straying into bus lanes
Highest income from enforcement cameras generated by Greater London Authority as campaigners condemn âcash bonanzaâ schemes.
Well this is clearly the main reason for the bus lanes that and to cause more congestion by forcing 90% of the traffic on to 50% of the road. Why to are taxis allowed to use them as taxis are far less efficient than private cars as often empty other than the dirver and they need professional drivers too.
Also migrants get A&E priority – surely if anyone has plenty of time to wait around it is migrants? Meanwhile people who need to get back to work and pay taxes often wait 11 hours or often die in the waiting room!
January 4, 2025
While he Khan he will rob the motorists.
January 5, 2025
Sir Sadiq Kahn for services to crime, road blocking, motorist muggings, two tier policing & âjusticeâ, anti-semitic marches and knifings on the streets and abusing Trump amd the USA.
January 4, 2025
Going further back, it was convalescent homes. When the patient had completed hospital treatment but still needed some less skilled nursing care for a few days or weeks they went to convalescent homes, usually by the seaside to benefit from the air. Of course no doubt some bright spark politician decided this was outdated and the usual save a pound today, spend a fiver tomorrow to put right what they had made wrong was introduced and the convalescent homes were closed. We need them now, more than ever, a simple enough concept, but beyond the thinking power of the average MP.
January 4, 2025
Indeed hospitals complain of bed blockers due to lack of social care. Well the government can build the Nightingale hospitals as a PR stunt so why not an extra ward with basic nursing care for these bed blockers? So as to release the beds in the main hospital. It is the same tax payers money either social services or NHS. It should not cost much more indeed probably less to run these wars than it does to sent out carers up 50 different houses.
Plus if they need more serious hospital care it is just round the corner. The worse of all Worlds is an argument between one arm of government and another with the poor patient in the middle. Government needs to bang heads together and get real cooperation between arms of the state.
January 4, 2025
Care homes where usally located on the same hospital grounds, thereby training nurses and using acute services without the needs of ambulances etc ….very logical
January 4, 2025
Indeed.
January 5, 2025
Back to basics.
Training on wards from school leaving age.
Convalescence wards with grade 2 and 3 nursing, daily doctor visits.
January 4, 2025
Well The British Housewivesâ League (which I served as Hon.Sec.) always recognized that whether they have paid employment or not, the life role of women is to nurture and care for the family, community and by extension – the nation. i.e all women are Housewives in addition to whatever else they undertake.
The weaponised âfeminist movementâ – of whom we hear very little now, undermined all of that by asserting that the work was worthless. We now know that caring for your parents is âworthâ ÂŁ104,000 (out of taxed income) pa. How many women earn that much outside the home?
Women are at a massive disadvantage in the workplace, especially the talented and able. They attempt to do a manâs job (I.e full time) in addition to the job they feel morally and spiritually bound to undertake, indeed, the one they were born to do. So ironically it is the talented women who fail.
Time the nation considered itâs women with compassion, time the male population undertook to provide, protect and defend us. Do you know, for example that 25,000 British women and girls have been raped by âasylum seekersâ in the last 25 years? Is this of no concern to British men?
January 4, 2025
News-Pravda.com reports that 250,000 UK white women were raped these last 25 years. How comes you could have made a mistake minimising the number by a factor 10?
As everybody knows on this blog, Pravda is the Truth âŠ
January 4, 2025
The Fev Dr Gavin Ashenden is my source. You know I think my mind went into a wobble and could not comprehend 250,000. I will watch his video again to check. But you might be right!
January 4, 2025
Lynn
British men, some of them fathers of the victims, have tried to defend them. And for their troubles they were demonised and in some cases arrested.
The State has failed us, not the other way around.
January 4, 2025
I do not like the morality of the profligate getting a free ride while those who have led a responsible life of catering for their own accommodation and lifes needs get penalised by the theft of their legacy. Frankly it is corrupt.
For all end of life medical care and recovery care or hospice care should be free at the time it is needed.
Before social care became necessary the responsible elderly had accommodation, bought their own clothes and food without recourse to the State. They can continue to do so as long as they live, changing only the way they get into their clothes or their food is prepared, while remaining in their own homes. The State, local or national has no right to steal their assets to feed the current overpriced scheme of late life care.
The present inadequate state of affairs is not the fault of the individual in need, that fault lies entirely with incompetent politicians and government. I would add that socialism will make it worse because the current version is hell bent on destroying wealth and the means of creating it. Current social care is merely a symptom, along with all other failed infrastructure, of the total inadequacy of government.
Reply We either have to pay from assets and income, or by paying more tax. The state has no money.m
January 4, 2025
Reply to SJR reply.
SJR money would be a plenty were they not spending it on insanities overseas and at home, Nett Zero for one. Back loading our population by a million plus a year. Failing to create an entrepreneurial society, in fact just the opposite. Leaping at tax as a solution is an admission of failure. Less of it is a solution. Taxing to the hilt and stealing what is left may be a politicians solution, but it is heading for revolution.
January 4, 2025
+1
The money is available. Or it would be if the Establishment didn’t shovel it abroad; into Globalist “Quangos,” NGOs and into the hands of criminal foreigners here as fast as it possibly can.
January 4, 2025
Agricola:
Agreed. We would have more to spend on social care if our Governments had not given so much away. Billions in Foreign Aid, and many millions to pay for those who come over the Channel every day. Governments have prioritized the needs of the rest of the World over those of the UK, and have used taxpayers money to pay for it.
January 4, 2025
Reply to reply
Sir
When you say a solution is to pay more tax, I would hope that you mean the Government should increase the tax take without increasing tax rates (ideally reducing them). So much can be achieved if the UK were to have an economically and fiscally competent Government.
We could then decide how all our tax money is spent, exclude waste and prioritise expenditure here in the UK.
Yes … social care is expensive, but we’re an advanced country aren’t we ?
Reply I was not recommending that solution. My views on tax have been set out in other pieces here. Of course I do not favour higher tax rates or new taxes.
January 4, 2025
reply to reply …there is always room for new taxes where the world moves on, attitudes change, lifestyles damage things..etc.
Why not introduce annual licence fees on EVs which are doing more damage to roads than almost all other cars; cyclists, dogs, cats…others may add more subjects.
January 4, 2025
John, you say we have to pay using assets or pay more tax. Those without assets are invariably the ones who also pay no tax.
My mother in law passed away last year, we sold her house to fund her care after initially funding it ourselves.
I asked the manager at the very lovely home how many are self funded. She said 8 out of 30. She also said that self funders pay about ÂŁ1000 pcm more because council fees are capped.
How can this be fair.
My colleague at work overseas never paid National insurance, I paid for the full 30 years i was abroad. I now get the minimum state pension and he gets pension credit which is ÂŁ80 more than me. He continues to get WFA. I don’t.
The channel paddlers will one day be old and no doubt continue to get priority treatment. There has to be major changes and the uniparty is incapable of change.
January 5, 2025
Ian, you have put your finger on the main complaint. I was told by a lady that worked in a care home in Liverpool that only 1 in 10 paid towards their fees and like you said, double the amount the free people billed to the council. She said that most people with money tried to care for themselves at home, using people that visit once or twice per day for as long as possible.
My fear is theyâll sign themselves up for the death pods to look after their children instead of the State taking all.
January 4, 2025
R to R
The State has infinite amount of money, just look at all that cash it created during the SCAMDEMIC to pay for people to sit at home. The problem comes when one has too much money in the system and if those in the currency exchange markets holding Sterling see it as a viable currency. When people stop holding Sterling we are in big trouble. Witness Wiemar Germany and Zimbabwe.
January 4, 2025
To reply:- The state has no money because they keep wasting it often on things that do zero good or even net harm. Net zero, open door low skilled immigration, the lockdowns, the Covid Vaccines, the propaganda units, no deterrent two tier policingâŠ
Kemi thinks it is long past time for a public enquiry into âgroomingâ gangs. Why do they use this euphemism they are rape of children gangs. Starmer is a guilty as anyone over the failures to tackle these rape gangs as the Mail says today.
January 4, 2025
All the money the State has it has taken from us. Ergo âthe State has no moneyâ.
January 4, 2025
Indeed but they have taken it from tax payers Ergo they have – alas they waste it so quickly and on such lunacies as I list above.
January 4, 2025
The current UK social care system needs to be cut back especially with respect to immigrants, who it is reported, only have a 15min waiting period for access to medical access. The country cannot afford such costs which anyway are totallu unapproved by UK voters. The other egregious shortcoming relaling to unsffordsbrl costs is the number of UK residents (especially in the 18-30 aged groups) who are permitted to rely on the social security systems for far too long – say six months may be acceptabe in any 5 year period – except for spcial situations. If these people think they are overqualified for the jobs which are available they need to bite on the bullet and do what people in previous generations did – step down on their initial expectations and accept more menial roles and then work their way up based upon performance. We need to accept the capitalist system otherwise, as currently seems increasingly probable, the country’s overall standard of living will fall back to a level such as in socialist Venezuela, Cuba or Russia. Difficult to believe that politicains don’t realise the folly of granting almost universal entitlements.
January 4, 2025
But the 18-30 have been mollycoddled into state paid education to 18, then loaned cost of university, too often with parental top-up. The enormous loan is sold as not being due until well-paid jobs are taken, yet that bill rises with excessive interest added annually. Education is expensive with teachers pension rights, all paid above national average incomes, lecturers light load and high cost for holding forth with nothing new required each year.
The social fund for benefits, and immigrants is generous so why should the 18-30s not take advantage?
Time for a restructure and realisation for the younger groups.
January 5, 2025
Itâs only the English that pay full student tuition fees.
January 4, 2025
It may have escaped your notice, David, but in the 90s Russia gave up on socialism and accepted the capitalist system. Since then, the steadily rising standard of living in Russia, compared with stagnation and decline in corruption-ridden Ukraine, helps to explain why so many people in Southern and Eastern Ukraine voted to join Russia in 2022.
January 4, 2025
China also gave up on Communism. They realised that all they really needed was to hang on to power.
January 4, 2025
China HAS NOT given up on Communism. It has agreed to leave the tiny leased areas which use capitalism to produce wealth to continue so that they can FUND the communism of China.
Russia is NOT the USSR, it is modern, capitalist, Christian, thriving and has beaten NATO in Ukraine. ( this has been acknowledged in an article in 2nd January âThe Hillâ which reports that Budanov informed the Biden Whitehouse in April 2023 that Ukraine had lost the war! Incidentally we housewives on this blog and elsewhere have known that for a couple of years – before it was forced to be acknowledged by Ukraine. It makes fools of British Intelligence, the British Military Establishment and the British MSM who are STILL, stupidly, asserting that âPutin canât take another year like 2023â.)
January 4, 2025
That’s because “British Intelligence” is mainly a disinformation operation-not only their much ridiculed reportage on the war, but they also totally missed or ignored the vast increase in Russia’s manufacturing potential over the past decade and its financial strength.
Not only is the UK going to be ruined by the geopolitical fallout from this war but also France-Cote d’Ivoire has just asked French troops to leave its territory-the sixth Francophone African state to do so over the past couple of years.As past French presidents have openly admitted,France’s international standing depends on its African presence,now all but lost.As President Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso(the poster boy for the new/final wave of decolonization sweeping Africa -and spotted by Vladimir Putin at the Russia-Africa Summit of a couple of years ago as a useful ally to be encouraged and supported)said in his New Year message:”We have regained control of our natural resources.”
January 4, 2025
The thought of having to pay for residential care in old age fills me with dread. Care home fees range greatly in price. What you pay is what you get. It would be helpful if some people could get a tax break ? That is, pay no income tax in order to fund their social care. Dream on Diana. I foresee the present government putting VAT on care home fees. Once again an attack on the elderly.
January 4, 2025
DD. Don’t give Thieves any ideas. She’s doing enough damage as it is.
January 4, 2025
Indeed VAT quite likely with this lot . If however you are into IHT you do in effect save 40% on anything you spend before you die. Be that cruises, care costs, holidaysâŠ
Kemi Badenoch calls for ‘long overdue’ national inquiry into UK grooming scandal. Over due by about 14 years might that be Kemi? Why does she use the appalling euphemism âgroomingâ they were surely rape gangs?
A good edition of Patrick Christys last night on GB news. Plus Trump tell Farage net zero promises by world leaders are âridiculousâ, in the UK they are making a tremendous mistake.
They are indeed. Miliband amd this government are totally deluded and wrecking the economy with NET and Reeves other anti-growth lunacies. See the latest David Starkey video on this.
January 4, 2025
Vat on the bills the prudent saved for, ignore the cost of those who lived the life of Riley?
January 4, 2025
Indeed. Also do not charge or have a proper inquiry into the the rape gangs, do not depart serially convicted criminals but lock up people who tweet the odd unpleasant thing!
January 4, 2025
So much easier, pleasanter and more lucrative to go after the law abiding and the prudent. We see this in so many areas protection of children by social services train fines, shop lifting.
Like the person who got a criminal record just for pushing the wrong rail card button despite paying exactly the same price – yet no one does anything if you just jump the barriers at tube stations as many thousands do every day or grab all the steaks and run at the supermarket.
January 4, 2025
Well if you will have to pay IHT you do get 40% back on anything you spend in IHT reductions be that spent on cruises, carers or whatever. OR the council will take it off you in care costs.
January 4, 2025
I expect most on here will remember Gordon Brown’s oft used word ‘prudent’?
In recent years being prudent regarding the ageing consequences has become the daftest thing we can do.
As Viv Nicholson, who became famous overnight when she said she would “spend, spend, spend” a ÂŁ152,000 Pools win in 1961, why be prudent!
The State looks after those who fully enjoy the money thay have, even when it has all gone.
January 4, 2025
Indeed the system system say do not be prudent or you will end up paying for all the feckless!
January 4, 2025
The 150,000 criminal migrants the Establishment has shipped-in as fast as it possibly can over the past 3 years are getting “free everything.” “Free” and immediate NHS treatment; “free” dentistry; “free” hotel accommodation; “free” meals; “free” mobiles; “free” bikes; “free” clothing; “free” pocket money; “free” legal aid …… and the freedom to work illegally in the black market; to stalk schoolgirls; to attack British citizens and other vulnerable British citizens ….. and then occasionally they get “free” treatment by our police/criminal “justice” system and HMP.
And then there are the hundreds of thousands of Visa-overstayers, who are also abusing the taxpayers of this country.
I don’t want to be told there is no money to pay for the social care of elderly British citizens who have lived here all their lives and (in most cases) will have made a contribution to the Treasury and their local Council for decades, all the time the Establishment is shovelling ÂŁbillions, every year, into freeloading foreign criminals.
January 4, 2025
Who pays the bills?
At 25-35 years old we don’t know our final situation. Whether or not we’ll need care and whether or not we’ll be able to self pay. So there’s a case for an optional insurance to cover good quality care.
Families contributing to parents’ care has been pushed further away by the Uniparty. I can pay ÂŁ2000 a week to a care home but if I pay my kids that amount for care then die within 7 years it will be seen as a gift and they’ll have 40 percent taken away.
January 4, 2025
Same as Childcare. If you farm your pre-school children out into a poorly-staffed “Childcare Business” the Government picks up a high proportion of the cost.
If the child’s grandparents provide the care, or there is an informal arrangement with a friend to each provide childcare for the other, allowing them both to work part-time, there is nothing. It is actively discouraged.
Why would that be? I suggest (a) it is to keep the money-go-round going for the Treasury and (b) so the pre-school children can be indoctrinated by the State.
January 4, 2025
Well perhaps. but if you share childcare with a friend you pay far less tax and NI than if you both work full time then use professional carers. Same with DIY often better to do this on the house or car than to worker longer and pay someone else as so much income tax, vat, loss of benefits and NI in the loop.
January 4, 2025
Indeed a large proportion die without any need for long term care or care homes at all.
Women are more likely to need paid long-term care than men, and the duration of that care also tends to be longer. According to the Department of Health and Human Services research, 51% of women aged 65 and over will need paid long-term care. Meanwhile, 39% of men who are 65-plus will need such care.
January 4, 2025
It seem such insurance is not available. I suppose a pension annuity is sort of insurance cover for this the longer you live the more you get and the more you are likely to need. Perhaps an annuity that increases with age is needed. The cheaper way is to spend all the money and force the state (other tax payers) to pick up you bill so many do this.
January 4, 2025
I looked into an insurance scheme a few years ago, only to discover they no longer exist. Will I need to go into a care home at some time in the future? Do I then need to put by a war chest for the purpose?
What I would like is an insurance policy that I can pay into that takes the risk. It pays out if I had to go into a care home. Such a scheme ties in well as an investment out of the tax free lump sum you get when you buy a pension annuity.
I object to being charged so much council tax to pay the care home fees of those who spent all the money they had, leaving nothing put by for their old age. Let those who have property sell it to pay for their care, and those who have nothing rely on charity. I feel sorry for those who spent their lives engaged in low pay or no pay worthy occupation and those with life limiting illnesses (provided they weren’t caused by their lifestyle).
January 5, 2025
Sir Joe at 25-35 those with degrees maintenance loan and the English with tuition fee 9% grad tax, child care, mortgage rates canât afford another 1% more. People need to get real in the uk. The state already takes 51% of them if they succeed in life.
January 4, 2025
Social Care reformers thinking ‘taxpayers should pay more and the people in care should pay less so their families can inherit more’ is rank Socialism. It is a sneaky Socialist technique of achieving their goal of equality of outcome in an undetectable way.
The current Social Care system seems mostly fair to me – ie it is an individual’s (and their families) responsibility to pay for their lodgings and food (with free healthcare provided). Of course, there are the poor and that is why we have a welfare state. The safety net preventing people from being homeless, hungry and ill.
Given there is a jaw-droppingly high ‘Social Protection and Personal Social Services’ cost to the taxpayer (GBP 430bn for 2025-26, the Autumn Budget) it shows that is where urgent reform is needed. It is evident from this colossal cost there is colossal waste, undeserving and protracted payouts and that is unfair on the British taxpayer and it is holding this country back from creating the much needed wealth and opportunities so people can prepare for their Social Care needs when they are needed in the future. It is also denying the elderly poor a better quality of social services that they are likely needing right now.
In my opinion we need to restrict and rename ‘Social Protection’ and both reallocate some of those savings to the elderly poor (who cannot fend for themselves) and return the rest to the taxpayer. ‘On your bike’ as Norman Tebbit once said.
January 4, 2025
An effective solution needs to be established and implemented now.
Politicians have been discussing, disagreeing and delaying what is needed for decades.
The âsolutionâ is only ever something they agree on as being right to deal with at some vague date in the distant future.
Meanwhile, folk in need are struggling, suffering, paying and losing quality of health and life, soon compounding into loss of life itself.
January 4, 2025
The clue is the aim for a consensus.
Whenever the Westminster Uni-Party reaches a consensus on a policy, the British people get CONNED.
Without exception.
It will be the same this time.
January 4, 2025
Most of us here are probably going to end up in a care home, so the topic is of more than academic interest.
We’re living longer than ever before. The “extended family” care model has largely gone due to cultural and economic changes. Nevertheless, certain minorities still practice it. So if government were prepared to relinquish some control, it’s not inconceivable that via education, taxation, planning and other measures, we might not encourage more of that system of elderly care amongst the majority population.
If we stick solely with the current system then as our kind host says, the cost has to be paid for, either by savings, other assets or taxes. I do wonder why the cost (ÂŁ1000 per week+) is so high. I suspect there is a lot of regulation which pushes up the price. We should look at that.
I also think there may be scope to extend live-in care If there was less regulation. Often there are spare rooms for live-in carers (and even for an extra elderly lodger to share the costs – why not?). What would be the effect of dropping say the inheritance tax rate for for such self-created, owner-occupied, “care homes”? All I’m saying is we should look at wider models and measures to encourage personalised self-help.
Lastly we also need a better way of allocating how efficiently, and on what, our taxes are spent (HS2 anyone?). Maybe more money can be channelled in this direction without increasing the tax take.
January 4, 2025
Unless you have ÂŁ1,000 per week, you will NOT end upon a care home.
January 4, 2025
Care homes typically house 80+% who are state funded, the small balance rely on value of their home being absorbed to pay.
January 4, 2025
A care home – a good one – costs R19,000 per month in Johannesburg. (ÂŁ791.00?)
January 5, 2025
available to British citizens? Form an orderly queue.
January 4, 2025
Sir JR. I confess I do not have a solution to this conundrum. But I know a couple of things.
The current system of fully funding those who have, through their own actions, no money. Whilst allowing the charging of uncontrolled exorbitant fees to those who live a prudent lifestyle. Is borderline criminal. Succesive governmemnts have sat back and watched this happen for decades.
The government has plenty of money. Sadly succesive governments have chosen to waste it by sending it overseas, filling the country with immigrants, free NHS to anyone and everyone who turns up despite having never paid in a penny, funding wars, imprisoning people who’s views are opposite to government, the Covid scam and the big ‘un. The ‘climate change’ scam
January 4, 2025
Cancel the Overseas Aid Budget until Social Care Services are resolved both in terms of performance and budget. Which will not be until 2028 given this latest review. Review upon review but will it get anything resolved?
January 4, 2025
Maybe the Commonwealth should start contribution to the U.K. – after all we are the most indebited and therefore the poorest.
Mozambique (an ex-Portuguese colony that was accepted into the Commonwealthđł) has been in destruction mode throughout the Christmas period. I understand the whole place is aflame and they have food for 2 months (max). Iâm guessing your care-home funding will be diverted to Mozambique pdq to rebuild. After all, unless we rebuild they will have nothing to burn when next they have a tantrum.
January 4, 2025
Effective social care is far more than keeping a Care Home clean, the residents fed and medicated and the numerous tick boxes consistently filled. Sadly, the vital role of building and nurturing relationships with the residents, being aware of individual needs and being trained in how to meet those needs seems to be getting forgotten in some parts of the care industry as the quest for profit is prioritised.
January 4, 2025
My local Care Home currently has a notice in the window asking for volunteers to commit to making a regular “social/ visitor” service for an hour or so a week ….. to chat to the residents; knit or sew with them; participate in crosswords etc
I briefly considered it … and then I remembered that the Government Covid Tyrants made it compulsory for Care Home workers to participate in a mass human medical experiment …. and when 40,000 refused to be bullied in that way, they were sacked.
I also refused to be bullied into participating in the Immune-System-Destroying gene therapy experiment ….. so I rejected the idea.
January 4, 2025
A good decision Donna the statistics for the Covid “vaccines” are appalling but Sunak has still not corrected his the covid vaccine are safe misleading of the house.
January 4, 2025
Our friends own a care-home. It was their contribution to their community, however it has almost broken them. They are in a monopsony situation with the Council telling them how much they will get per week per patient. The Council is not in the business of keeping private enterprise in the black. It does not cover costs. They have been pumping money in for 10 years now, but pretty soon their own old age care will be insecure.
I think the budget was the straw that finally broke the camelâs back. They are closing it, the building is not capable of being redeployed because itâs so specialist. They have to take that hit now. God alone know what will happen to the patients and, of course, many redundancies.
Reply A cautionary tale that is reflected in so many private landlord businesses, shops, leisure etc all hit by NI, VAT and grasping governmentv
January 4, 2025
I am dropping rents by 1/3 this year in an attempt to keep my small business tenants in business. The silver lining is that the Treasury will get less!
January 4, 2025
and you are likely to save some back on less taxation?
January 4, 2025
Agree. I canât see any real structural problem with the current system. If people have to sell their homes to afford a nicer standard of residential care then so what ? My mother did. I didnât expect the taxpayer to pay for her so that I got a bigger inheritance.
January 4, 2025
Nicer? When a person in hospital is deemed to be unable to care for themselves in their home, the state authorities find them a ‘Home’ which has a vacancy, choice goes out the window…. If a relative (usually) can find a ‘nicer’ place at the commonly mentioned ÂŁ1000 per week that ‘care’ will partially fund others in the same ‘Home’.
A fully private place is likely to be somewhat more expensive still.
January 4, 2025
Here’s an idea.
If you have the means to do so (government or wealthy philanthropist), but up a care home, then sell shares to new residents. Over time, the residents become the owners. They decide how much they want to pay for care home staff, management, quality of food and upkeep. When a resident dies, their share is part of their estate which can be sold to a new resident. There would still be regular fees to pay the running costs, but the residents decide what these should be, and how much extra for those needing greater care. The good thing is that instead of the profits going to some wealthy owner, they can be reinvested back into the home or they get cash back.
January 4, 2025
Only works if all the patients have the resources to pay. Many depend on the State to fund them and they will not play ball.
January 4, 2025
As you say, John, there are many interacting factors here, and if there were simple equitable answers someone would have found them and enacted them by now. There are different models in Scotland and Norther Ireland, but they also have problems, as do other countries.
One simple factor is, however, obvious: there are too few carers, and the obvious, and I think necessary step is to increase their pay. Good care now costs about ÂŁ2k per week, more than 60% of that (possibly 80%) are staff costs. The relationship between increasing pay and applications for posts at that end of the labour market is quite steep, but nevertheless we should brace ourselves for a large rise in overall care-home costs over the next decade or so, maybe even by 50%. Distributors of largess to their children take note.
January 4, 2025
This shows the limits of the big state – without exhorting ever more taxes from us the state is unable to provide everything they want to make big government a fact. So we get an uneasy kind of truce between the NHS, individual wealth and free enterprise.
Sad to say but government is a very bad provider of services like care homes. People go there to die and they know it. The vast majority of provided care homes offer little in the way of quality of life. Residents are mostly left to sit in a circle around a TV, their live dribbling away as they wait for infrequent visits from family.
Some care homes provide other entertainments and distractions to enhance the lives of their elderly and frail, but I’d never trust a state sponsored care home to fulfil all my needs in my last few years.
Why do so many die after being in hospital, shoved out because the bed is needed? A recuperation service should be a big part of the NHS to make people well and help them get over the hospital stay and regain their strength. Until the state can do this, and provide real end of life care, we are better off relying on family for our social care.
January 4, 2025
Perhaps if everyone made a ÂŁ10,000 mandatory contribution during their lifetime as insurance for elderly care, all the manipulation of monies would cease and universally applied ,it would simplify existing arrangements.
If the mini wasn’t paid they wouldn’t get help.
January 4, 2025
Money
January 4, 2025
Less than 3 months in a care homeâŠ. How will that help, everyone gets old.
January 4, 2025
I agree with you. In particular I see no reason why a house should not be sold to pay for the boarding costs of those who are in social care; after all, if the house has been owned for any length of time it will almost certainly represent a significant profit, which will be taken free of tax.
Where I think there is a great injustice in the present system, is in what is considered as ‘Illness’, and therefore qualifies for State funding, and what is considered a ‘Condition’, and thus does not, with most forms of Dementia, including Alzheimers falling int the latter category. To say that someone suffering from Alzheimers, or most other forms of Dementia, is not ‘ill’ seems to me a travesty. The plain fact is that the State probably would not be able to afford to pay because of the great number of people who end up with some form of dementia, but it might at least be honest about it and not hide behind semantics.
January 4, 2025
Social care for the elderly should be paid for by the elderly, not by taxpayers in general.Currently,only those who need care pay for it unless they are very poor but central and local government argue about the cost of care for the very poor.
A separate social care insurance fund should be set up,administered by the private sector eg BUPA or Aviva and/or others experienced in health insurance.
When we reach state retirement age we cease to be liable to pay National Insurance.At that point in time all pensioners should pay an additional tax of,say 4%,on taxable income from all sources to be hypothecated to the social care insurance fund.The precise amount needed can be worked out by the Treasury.
To jump start the scheme,all inheritance tax receipts for an appropriate period (5 years?) could be hypothecated to it and then that tax can be abolished if considered appropriate to do so.I suspect that the preference will be for future inheritance tax receipts to be hypothecated either to the social care scheme in order to reduce the social care tax on income or to another âworthwhile â project.
Any pensioner who enters a registered/regulated care home should be entitled to claim against the fund of an amount equal to the minimum needed to cover the cost of basic care in the area where they reside.Those who desire more luxurious surroundings can pay the extra cost themselves.
January 4, 2025
Maybe social care should be fully intergrated and staffed by the NHS
January 4, 2025
Spend the net-zero ÂŁbillions on helping our elderly, rather than helping the chinese economy
January 5, 2025
See my post below. We have record levels of taxation and as usual, Labour are driving us inexorably into a real economic crisis. We cannot afford a proper social care scheme on top of everything else.
The only way we can bring spending under control and do anything about the NHS and social care is to have a moratorium on Net Zero of at least a decade, ideally it should be 25 years to allow new technology to be developed.
Ask voters : do you want real social care, better health treatment and to properly defend our country ? Or instead would you prefer to go down the Miliband route and spend even more money than that would cost on net zero instead ?
January 5, 2025
If the government down that route it would cost twice a much as if it were done in the privaHealthcare.
The solution is to go to a private health insurance scheme instead of the NHS socialist/communist model for both social care and healthcare.
January 4, 2025
Well New Labour inherited a golden opportunity to make things better in 1997 and gave Frank Field MP the brief to “Think the unthinkable” on Welfare State reform, which he did and they didn’t like, thereby gaining the “Champaign Socialists” nickname, whilst he, a genuine intelligent and compassionate champion of the social reforms was sent into the wilderness.
Successive governments have failed to touch this hot potato just like reforming the NHS and other mega contingent liabilities, using short term panics (remember “24 hours to save the NHS ” ?) as the priority.
Short termism after 30 years has now arrived with interest!
Reforms are crying out loud to blast the political log jams dictated by economics and can’t be wished away for others to deal the as New Labour have done in the past ( “Sorry no money left” ).
Labour now inherit their own bed of nails but we have to lie on it.
January 4, 2025
Frank Field MP, a great socialist and a great labour MP ….I don’t recognise this current lot
January 4, 2025
Starmer yesterday warm Madeira, was told to go to the back of the 3 hour wait toboggan queue after pushing his way to the front ahead of elderly folk, revealing his two tiers (for me but not for you).
Perhaps he was also testing whether the proverbial Public Sector Cart can be go before the Private Sector Horse, which only works economically if you are to helter skelter fast downhill?
With Net Zero we may be riding rickshaws too.
January 4, 2025
Pulling rickshaws donât you mean?
January 4, 2025
The elderly are too scared to put the fire on , let alone turn it up
If pursuit of wind power is the goal to 100% renewable energy (cheap energy)âŠwhy is it only producing 13% of the 41GW grid demand as at 17:00hrs today
This country is messed up
January 4, 2025
Getting ready for the de-industrialised race to the bottom hidden agenda net zero.
January 4, 2025
Competing for the race to the bottom.I
January 4, 2025
Dear Mr. Redwood,
All of the problems facing the UK including social care will never be solved unless the economy grows. All we are doing is salami-slicing an ever-decreasing cake. The demands of an ageing population will not be met by inviting in millions of low-paid migrants, students and dependents. If raising the population meant that GDP increases was true, by now we ought to be wealthy indeed! How many have arrived in the last 20 years – 10million, 15 million? Who knows? Certainly not the government. How can any administration make plans for anything whatsoever when it allows 1 million people into the country in a single year?
Nor will the economy grow whilst ever we have the imbecilic energy policies pursued by the uni-party which are sacrificing UK industries and jobs on the altar of Net Zero. We all want to live in a less-polluted world but the technology is immature and unaffordable at the moment. In 20 or 30 years it may be. I read that the UK has reduced its territorial greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2023 by more than the combined emissions reductions from the US, Canada, France, Italy and Japan. Have we not done enough for now? Is the uni-party going to close everything down and bankrupt Britain just to say our emissions are now Net Zero while other countries scoff at our stupidity?
Perhaps this most useless of useless governments the British people have had to endure these last decades understands this, but I’m afraid the uni-party is manifestly incapable of transforming our nation’s fortunes. A new party might not do any better but it could hardly do worse.
January 4, 2025
Most people wanting reform are not considering the needs of those in care , but are considering who pays the bills. They think taxpayers should pay more and the people in care should pay less so their families can inherit more.
This is a highly pejorative statement Sir John and I feel misses the basic issue. Why should those who have accumulated wealth pay more than those who have chosen other ways to live? This is an issue with benefits too and should be addressed across state provided assistance.
You write about hotel accommodation in your article and highlight that this should be paid without considering that this accommodation is hugely more expensive than living at ones own house and catering for oneself. The fact that the patient’s costs have risen is a direct consequence of their condition and so those elevated costs might be part of the treatment cost.
In the case of social care I think the solution may be to ask patients to pay with their income but not their savings. This way the poor can contribute their state pension and pension credit in full for their care and the better off can contribute their state and private pensions to the value of their stay, No one loses the value of their accumulated wealth to pay for care which is fair to all.
January 4, 2025
off topic.
Supporters of an 18-year-old Briton jailed for having sex with a 17-year-old British girl in Dubai have staged a protest in central London. Marcus Fakana from Tottenham is serving a one-year prison sentence after being convicted of having sex with the girl, who has now turned 18, when they were both on holiday.
The girl’s mother reported him to the Dubai authorities after seeing messages between the two when she had returned to the UK. The age of consent in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is 18.
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Did either party know of the law.?
Has the mother told the daughter she should return to Dubai to join the lad in jail?
Strange sort of justice served by the mother.
January 4, 2025
If we are not careful, politicians will create a copy of the NHS to deal with social care, which will cost taxpayers an absolute fortune and taxes would have to increase hugely to pay for it. Like the NHS, demographics are against us and there will come a point where neither can be funded from taxation. It is only a question of when this will happen, but it won`t be long, that’s for sure.
In the absence of a family-based support network, there is simply no alternative for those who can afford it, other than to take out insurance, paid for from savings, or use a proportion of the equity in their houses to pay for their care. I say this in the position of my wife and I being in our early 70s, and with saving and equity in our house.
For the sake of the country, economic growth and our population, what our government should be doing, is everything possible to reduce the cost of living. They should start by abandoning Miliband’s unaffordable Net Zero plans and whatever’s necessary to reduce energy costs to be below the European average, and as close as possible to that of the USA. In other words : put the people of Britain first.
January 5, 2025
There are a lot of people in the UK on benefits with nothing expected of them in return. It is time for community work to the value of minimum wage per hour, if they want more pay per hour then they get themselves some skills or night school and move up.
Of course Iâm not including those absolutely incapable of work of any kind. Single parents could be redeployed in school hours, nurseries could be combined with care homes as shown in several experimental settings and in the Netherlands.
New solutions are required rather than expecting more money from no growth. At the moment if people want their financial inheritance from their parents they have to look after their parents themselves or lose the cost of care from their gift. Those who didnât put away for themselves need community care.