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.

What about those who have disabled children that won’t ever be able to support themselves?

I’m not sure if my twins will ever be able to work, if we need to go into a home and our house is sold to fund care they’ll just end up reliant on the state to house them.

Honestly I try not to think far ahead because it scares the shit out of me.

Also I would be far too embarrassed to carry out personal care for my dad should the need arise & he too would be mortified.

We would definitely get carers in or he would go in a home.

I don't think some people realise the level and complexity of care that is sometimes needed. I thi k DGRossetti has an understanding of how our current government thinks (OFFOFF ). I think a better insurance scheme is the best option but can't see that being prposed.

Killing off old people who just feel a bit fed up and depressed isn't something likely to be legalized any time soon.

No, hence why places like Exit International need to exist.

Absolutely homes should be sold to pay for care when not needed anymore. Why should the tax payer pay more for Mrs Jones' nursing home place just so her family can receive an inheritance? Because they pay for Mrs Smith's care when Mrs Smith has severe and unpredictable nursing needs, leaving Mrs Smith's children with their inheritance intact. And Mrs Green's children get an inheritance because because Mrs Green died of a heart attack before she needed to go into care.

Why not, instead, levy 100% inheritance tax on all amounts over £230000? That would be fair to everybody.

I totally agree @Sotiredofthislife. After seeing my mum's mental health decline after caring for my grans and her dementia I don't not want that for my DD and would happily sign a bit of paper now to say that I do not want to live with dementia

Also I would be far too embarrassed to carry out personal care for my dad should the need arise & he too would be mortified.

I think everyone thinks that. I know I sobbed like a baby the day I first had to shower my dad, and he cried too. But the alternative was that he didn't get showered. He had a care package and they came four times a day, but they weren't allowed to help him shower and he so desperately wanted a shower, I couldn't bear to refuse.

I am in Scotland; here personal care in your home is supposed to funded by Local Authority, but it’s quite hard to access as carers are thin on the ground.
However should you need residential care, you are absolutely expected to sell your home to fund this and you keep paying until your savings/ asset value falls to about £26k. The council may give you a ‘loan’ against the value of the home until it sells.
I don’t think that’s unfair, and as pp’s have stated, if you want to pass your home on as inheritance, then you need to be hope your beneficiaries agree to look after you.
There are no easy answers, but honestly I would rather my one remaining elderly feels able to sell up and fund decent care, rather than worry about passing it on to the next generation.

My DH and I both have separated parents, all of whom remarried, so we have 8 people who will potentially need support. We're also massively unreasonable according to some people for wanting to own a home in the south-east (where we were both raised and where our families live), and should move somewhere cheaper...
Honestly though, I'd rather our parents sold their homes/exchanged their homes for a quality care package and were well cared for, and that I didn't see a penny of any inheritance, than worrying about them and trying to support them ourselves while both working.

I do not want to live when I no longer have autonomy because my mind or my body has packed up. I am outraged that I will be kept alive against my will, and the money I have saved to help my children and grandchildren will be used to pay for it.

My only way to avoid this is to take matters into my own hands while I still have possibly years of healthy living left.

I think DGRossetti has an understanding of how our current government thinks

Age, guile, and caring for a disabled wife for 25 years may have helped.

My DM died of an aggressive dementia that went from nothing in 2013, to death in 2017 (March, next month) .

Of course once all that lovely lolly locked up in people houses has fed the beast of greed, how long till it needs satiating again ? What then ? They took our taxes, they took our houses. What next to quiet the monster ? What next ?

Killing off old people who just feel a bit fed up and depressed isn't something likely to be legalized any time soon.

Not until someone can monetise it.

YANBU OP . l took early retirement to look after my parents 3 years ago, my Dad died a year ago and my Mum is still here. I was asked by my BIL re a home for them and l said 'over my dead body' & l mean it. I will look after Mum tills she passes , if she worsens then l will move in . l couldn't live with myself if l put her in a home .

“People’s homes should be used to finance their care- if their relatives would prefer the inheritance they can look after them”

In which case they won’t be working and paying the taxes to support those who have lived in social or privately rented housing all their lives.

The principle of selling the house to pay for care will polarise our society even more: those families that have enough wealth to support care from their loose change will pass their property on and their children will get richer and richer.

The squeezed middle and below-the-middle who struggle every month to pay the mortgage and end up with a modest terrace will see every penny swallowed up and their families end up with nothing, their lifelong thrift having saved the state the costs that are paid for for those who did not buy, nor save.

A lot of people in nursing homes are hoisted and doubly incontinent. How are you going to care for them when you’re in old age yourself?.

I think people often don't realise how little carers are actually able to do.

When my father was dying we had the maximum help available. But they weren't allowed to help him in or out of bed, we had to do that. They weren't allowed to shower him, we had to do that. There were very limited foods that they were allowed to help him with - only pre packaged, microwaveable ready meals, or pre-packaged sandwiches. We couldn't, as a family, leave home made food for him as they weren't allowed to heat it up. They even used to take ready meals and heat them up and bin half to stop my mother from eating the rest of it, because they weren't allowed to feed her as it wasn't in the contract.

Most of the carers were lovely, kind, caring, gentle and patient. But they were very limited in how much 'caring' they could do, and were so rushed that there was little opportunity for the sort of reassuring smalltalk that makes such a huge difference when you're having to allow strangers into your house.

When people say "families" need to look after their old people, they mean middle-aged women, in the most part, by the way.

I find being fed up and being tired and infirm a completely valid reason to want to die, seems ridiculous that as such one has no choice but to try potentially inefficient and unsuccessful methods to relieve themselves due to other peoples' morality.

I agree with the poster who mentioned women not being paid for the hours they spent looking after family members.

But also this is an issue of "improved" healthcare. We now have a vast array of drugs that keep us alive for longer that was ever possible and these are given without consideration or discussion of the wider implications. Just because we can keep elderly individuals alive doesn't mean we should.

I have an elderly relative who would have died years ago if it wasn't for medical intervention. He is taking a few different drugs, not at all sure how much this costs the NHS. He does not want his house sold to pay for care as he thinks this is a penalty for him saving and having a house when others who "haven't paid in" as much would have their care covered.

This is also going to be a class issue. The middle class will be able to support their relatives. Especially if houses can be sold and inheritance given early. People may not want to but they will have options. People closer to the breadline cannot afford to stop work and care for others.

Euthanasia is not the solution. My mother had a very physically restricted life in her last two years and she had many difficult times but she also had times of joy in that time and she did not want to die, despite being in her 90s until there last month or so where she was more resigned but still not wishing for death. She needed a very high level of physical care but she still loved talking, laughing eating ice cream, being taken for outings in her wheelchair , playing simple card games, listening to music, being read to, having lunch and tea with friends and family, doing simple jigsaws, simple crafts, eating cake. She didn't want to be euthanised and I didn't want it either . She had value as a human being even if she needed a lot of help to live her life.

When people say "families" need to look after their old people, they mean middle-aged women, in the most part, by the way.

I know an 80 year old lady who is the sole carer for her 98 year old uncle. It's heartbreaking to think that a woman on the verge of needing cared for herself is being run into the ground with exhaustion looking after someone else. But his needs aren't great enough for him to be assessed as needing a care package. So she has to do it, or else he starves.

I really, really hope euthanasia is legal before I get the dementia that appears to stalk my family. My fear is that I won't be deemed sane enough to mean.it.

Euthanasia is difficult

I had to watch my mum literally starve to death once cancer obstructed her bowel. She couldn’t eat, and still vomited excrement. It took about five weeks for her to die. Nobody should have to endure that, we wouldn’t put an animal through that

Then again, I know disabled people who are absolutely terrified of the impact of legal euthanasia on them and those they know, especially those who are too severely disabled to advocate for themselves.

Luckily I will never have to look after my MIL when she is older as she recently told me that she's rather be dead than live with me.
TBH I'd rather be divorced than lift a finger to look after her.

Old is one thing; demented/bedbound/incontinent is another.

The social problem is not people living longer; it's people living longer with very little mental or physical function.

For the first time ever society is facing the question of what to do with a huge section of the population who depend on others to survive the night - and every following night for the next 20 years.

In the old days, if you were lucky to live that long, you fell to bits and died. Medicine has advanced so now we fall to bits and have no life, but we're not dead. The final step could take decades.

At the moment, there isn't a solution. Euthanasia law is no closer in this country, but it works well everywhere else. Whether it will go on working when it becomes routine, who knows.

Part of the problem is that the condition and suffering of some very old people is so ghastly that no one wants to see it or hear about it, let alone talk of it.

The real problem hits us all, hard. Schools, universities and colleges cost a fraction of the eldercare drain on public cash. 95 per cent of the NHS budget goes on the old as it is. Adding eldercare to that would bankrupt any country.

Something has to give. What do you choose? And how would you enforce it?