To think families are going to have to look after their own old people?

[ElderAve]

It's not a judgement, the idea fills me with dread but how else are we supposed to pay for it? In a world where:

• It's political suicide to suggest that people who have valuable homes, they are no longer living in should use that value to pay for care.
• Everyone should be paid a proper living wage.
• We have increasing numbers of people needing care.

For example, between DH and I we have 4 elderly parents, still very much fit and well, but realistically, that can't carry on forever. Those parents have 4 working offspring.

I don't know how many residents a care home worker can care for but let's say it's 12, which to provide 24hr care means 3 shifts, so the equivalent of 1 full person to care for our 4 parents. That means that the state needs to raise tax equivalent to 1 (living wage) salary from the four of us and that's before paying for schools, hospitals etc.

Obviously not everyone has elderly parents needing care but those will often be heavy users of the schools system and we still need to pay for all the other services.

I just can't see how the state can do it, if they keep promising not to take the elderly's homes, which is so emotive.

It is the utmost privilege to be able to say I don’t need that money - spend it on your care to your parents.

Bullshit. DH and I have both lost grandparents to dementia. We are unlikely to come into any sort of inheritance, and we rent - and will continue to do so until we’ve saved for a deposit. Our attitude is based firmly on 1) wanting the best professional care available for our parents should they require it and 2) not feeling entitled to cash that we haven’t earned, largely because we weren’t brought up to base our life plans on hanging around to wait for people to die.

No job would ever be more important to me than my Mum. 2 sisters were sahm, one took sabbatical of 6 months, one had retired very early

Its great you were able to care for your mum. But noone thinks their job is "more important" than their parents, its about reality. Lots of people CANNOT afford to leave their job as they have financial responsibilities - some would lose their house if they gave up their job and if you have kids its an impossibility. They have no choice. Also- its great you had siblings to share the burden- many people (like me) are only children which means the entire burden is on us alone. Its not quite as easy when you have zero respite time.

This assumption that ageing is a "problem" that requires state interference is odd.

Perhaps they’re speaking from experience in an area you have none.

It’s because so many, many elderly do require care that it is such a big issue.

We should raise the rate of inheritance tax quite a bit and hypothecate the extra part so that it is ringfenced to pay for social care. It is iniquitous that those with dementia are fleeced in this way, on top of having this dreadful disease. Raising IHT and ringfencing it to social care means that everyone with assets bears some of the cost.

It’s a bit mad that iht rates have not been increased to take account of the growth of capital relative to income since 2008.

All the people I know with assets did and do pay for their own care.

The problem is really the people with no assets who are reliant on the state. State funding for those individuals does not cover the actual cost of their care.

Mistigri, I think your mum would be able to come and join you even after transition - wasn't that part of the withdrawal agreement?

Nope, not unless she moves before the end of this year.

Tatiana but not everyone with enough assets to pay IHT actually needs to access care - or doesn’t need to access it for as long as someone with dementia. If you raise and hypothecate the tax, everyone with assets pays a bit, whether or not they end up needing the service and regardless of how long. And those that don’t pay IHT still get tax-payer funded care.

Most people do not pay IHT.

If the government were willing to fund social care out of IHT they could be already doing so. The reason we are in crisis is because the Tory government pulled the plug on social care in 2010. They don’t give a fuck about elderly people any more than they care about sick, disabled or migrants.

Raising IHT would not be popular with core Tory voters.

Ageing does require state involvement. Even before the welfare state there were workhouses for people too old and ill to work. It is simply not possible for most people to save enough to pay for years of care if they get dementia.

most people do not get dementia

No job would ever be more important than my mum
How do you propose to house, feed and clothe everyone if you give up a job? Or are you relying on someone else to do that whilst you show how loving and selfless you are?
For most of us, that’s a much harder choice, if not impossible.

www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/paying-for-a-care-home/do-i-have-to-sell-my-home-to-pay-for-care/#

People do have to sell their homes to pay for care except in certain circumstances (it's still being lived in)

People are living longer and longer, some with multiple complex illnesses

I’m not sure that those who say people should always stay with family, have ever lived with dementia.

We took my FiL to live with us once it was obvious that he was suffering from dementia, but we were blithely clueless about what it could mean in practice. ‘Just getting more forgetful - how hard can it be?’

What it meant fairly soon was having him up and down in the night, banging and shouting and demanding to go out at 3 am, coming into other bedrooms and peering closely at the sleepers to see who was sleeping in ‘his’ house, waking everybody up - and we had dds still at school and coming up to important exams. Not to mention dh, still working long hours in a very demanding job.

Then he would hide things, and go mad when he couldn’t find them. We were once hunting for hours, until well past midnight.

Then there was the endless pacing and the same question over and over - I once counted 35 times in one hour. At the time I was trying to work from home - it was impossible.

Worst, though, were the rages, over the tiniest and usually unavoidable thing. They didn’t happen often, but were so violent I had to leave the house - and take the terrified dog with me.

Even dh didn’t really believe me about how bad they were - until he saw one for himself. Dh is a big hefty bloke but even he said he wouldn’t have dared to approach him.

These are just some of the reasons my FiL finally went to a very nice care home, which we found only after an awful lot of looking. (I haven’t even gone into his reluctance to wash or change his clothes. We did find ways to cope but it was just another headache.)

And it eventually got to the stage where he just wasn’t safe to be left alone even for very short periods, there was no telling what he might do - it was like leaving a toddler on the loose.

Might add that I was extremely fond of my FiL and had always got on well with him, but there are limits to the amount of stress and exhaustion you can tolerate.

People who piously criticise others for putting relatives in care homes often have absolutely no idea of how they may have done their very best to cope first, frequently for a long time.

I am not ashamed to say that when it came to my mother, some years later, there was no way I was doing it again. We supported her at home as best we could, including many ‘sleepovers’ at her house, until 24/7 care had become an urgent necessity.

BeyondMyWits of course not, but it is the leading cause of death for women in the UK:

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesseriesdr/2017

www.dementiastatistics.org/statistics/prevalence-by-gender-in-the-uk/

And not just dementia. My aunt has dementia but she also has significant mobility issues from osteoporosis.

For the last 7 years the mobility issues have been far more of a problem than the dementia which was mild. She required high levels of care at home. As did her DH before he died as he was in a mobility scooter.

Now her dementia has escalated she’s in a care home.

It doesn’t necessarily require state involvement if the elderly person has sufficient assets.

Fortunately she’s wealthy so she paid for private carers at home. And now she’s in a lovely home , where miraculously she’s very happy.

But it’s costing £70,000 a year. Her house was sold to pay for care.

That was to janemaster

Yes agreed Tatania. My DF never had dementia but had multiple health issues and poor mobility. He used all his savings paying for private carers.

A PP has identified that dementia patients are actively discriminated against under the current system - it is not a "social disease" it is a medical condition with many complex issues attached and should not be considered as such.

Yes, but the real problem with it is that it doesn't kill you as fast as the other diseases and so far, advanced directives are not generally recognised. So any other medical problems are treated.

It's a sticky wicket.

Heartily agree with the above. Mil had dementia for 20 years, and spent the last ten in a nursing home. Fil had dementia for 6. Obviously their house and savings were obliterated. Every single small ailment they had was treated, plus pneumonia and they continued to be administered all medications such as blood thinners, statins etc. In a warm environment and being (spoon) fed three times a day, they were able to plod on - but with no knowledge whatsoever of who or where they were - for years.

Dementia and Parkinson's should be treated the same as other diseases.
It's completely unjust.

The fact that your mother only survived seven weeks after the diagnosis is almost certainly a substantial part of the reason why you were able to pull that off caringcarer.

But as I just pointed out, dementia can last donkeys' years. It is unfair, because for a start dh has been left with nowt whereas a friend of mine, whose parents both died of heart attacks in quick succession (and they were old) has just inherited £2 million as they were still living in a modest house in a London suburb.

I know people say that inheritance envy is grabby, but the amounts can be life changing, especially for people who would never otherwise be able to afford a home, and it is now an end-of-life lottery, with those who have demented parents being the losers.

If dementia had a span of 5 years tops it wouldn't be so bad, but I do understand why it can't be classified as a "disease" when it is not in itself life limiting.

My father was given less than 6-months to live. He lived another 20 months.

The fact that your mother only survived seven weeks after the diagnosis is almost certainly a substantial part of the reason why you were able to pull that off caringcarer. That, and that you had siblings to share the load. Imagine doing it single-handedly for 3-5 years, and then getting back into the job market after a 3-5 year gap.