To think we have to accept that we need to use savings to fund care in old age

[LastDuchessFerrara]

My parents died before reaching old age but I'm now watching family and friends caring - in one form or another - for older relatives.

Many seem to be in denial about the fact that savings, pensions and, in some cases equity in their home, needs to be used to enable their relatives to continue to stay in their homes or go into care.

"But they've worked all their lives!" they cry in protest. Well, yes - and now that money needs to be used in their old age.

It's really focussed my mind on how any money I accumulate might not be spent on amazing holidays but paying for cleaners and carers.

I'd be interested in views but please can this not be a "boomer" bashing thread. I know plenty of impoverished old people and plenty of entitled non-boomers.

I don't think anyone has suggested reducing healthcare funding here Jas, or I missed it. It is more about finding a reasonable middle way between transferring the costs of all social care into the NHS budget and leaving it with the local authorities. I don't find it unreasonable that anyone who has been able to buy a home and save for a personal or contributory pension should be expected to help fund the care they need in the last few years, or to be able to buy a better service. It is their savings and it should be spent on themselves according to their needs and wishes. But I don't think the state should subsidise the well-to-do, so they can leave a large legacy for their family. Hence my suggestion of a threshold, as per Dilnot.

Chasing planning breaches costs money. Chasing deprivation of assets can save money. Big difference.

@jasjas1973 your proposals need funding for decades. Stopping Trident and HS2 might cover a few years but after that?

[quote countrygirl99]@jasjas1973 your proposals need funding for decades. Stopping Trident and HS2 might cover a few years but after that?[/quote]
All public services need ongoing funding, the loss of tax take by cuts to corporation tax are on going, the previous 2% cut cost about 6 billion per year.... the now scrapped cut a further 6billion.

Yet no one cares about that but leave an inheritance .....OMG!

I understand we need to have competitive rates but ours already were, the govt decided to slash them.

ASC has been the poor relation in our health service and its about time that stopped being the case, plus as many posters have pointed out, the ability to self fund may well reduce due to less home ownership.

jas, I didn’t call you deluded. I admire your idealism actually but I think in this instance it’s misplaced.

If those of us with the money to afford it pay for our care, it means more in the pot for people who can’t. Already the bar’s incredibly high for people to qualify for tax funded residential care, it would only go higher if there were no self funders.

Added to which it would remove the choice from those of us who are happy to self fund high quality care. Why would you want to control how we spend our money? I don’t suppose you approve of my self funded cataract surgery either but I’m delighted I had that choice and I freed up a place on the waiting list for someone else.

Ok Truce! Passionate views can be... well passionately expressed!

Why would you want to control how we spend our money? I don’t suppose you approve of my self funded cataract surgery either but I’m delighted I had that choice and I freed up a place on the waiting list for someone else

No problem at all, people are free to use their own money as they see fit......however, my belief is sooner or later, what will happen is that those with the means, will be expected to pay/contribute for their cataract/hip/knew/hernia operation.
With CV, the scenario where wealth once again buys you treatment and it won't be freeing up space for those that can't pay, they will just without.

We shouldn't just accept this with ASC but we are.... i did, my mums house would have been sold in an instant to give her better care but its still wrong.

To a degree, I think our discussions simply reflect the sheer size of the Pig in the Python, which is the nickname demographers give to the baby boomers. And, there are health/calorific issues arising from the knock on effects of fast food and supermarket chill cabinets and two working parents needing to feed families fast, which has dominated life since the 1990s. Back in 1992, I used to work with M&S corporate, and I saw/interviewed their senior mgmt just below board levels regularly. One, on the food side, said You are my target market. And in a city, I would have been. But I was already out of the system. And knew enough about food (my mum has C&G in Hotel Catering, via school meals) to understand that to make it foolproof and tasty and quick, then the trick is more sugar, more salt and more fat. Which equals weight gain. So no, only ever buy from the chill cabinet in a real emergency. Anything you can do at home from scratch is much lower calorie and far healthier.

Ooops, probably not the post I meant to put here, but still true!

And I'd indict the medical profession who judge success on cheating the reaper. No doctor wants to be asked how many elderly patients died quietly at home in comfort with their nearest and dearest popping in to say their farewell. They all want to have pulled people back from death. But they mostly won't tell patients, the best thing you could do is stop drinking, smoking, lose weight and soon.

Alzheimer’s and dementia should get the same level of care on the NHS as any other illness, as should mental health. They don’t and if taxes needs to be raised to cover then they should be.

It’s not just about who bears the cost but ensuring everyone person gets the level of medical treatment that they need, and that cost isn’t a factor that prevents them from getting it

More general care would ideally also be provided under the umbrella of the NHS as it is better and more cost effective at providing large scale services then private (see vaccines vs. track and trace). If this were to happen then we might need to accept that it needs to be paid for (at a subsidised rate depending on income/assets). This goes against ‘free at the point of use’ but we already do this for prescriptions and dentistry. And tax increases

Personally I think lowering the inheritance tax threshold as well as increasing working age taxes like NI is a good way of sharing this across generations and income/assets.

At the moment though a lot of families have to make the choice of providing care themselves and their inheritance. I fully accept that I may lose mine as I don’t wish to do this, and don’t think it would be good enough care if I did

Alzheimer’s and dementia should get the same level of care on the NHS as any other illness, as should mental health. They don’t and if taxes needs to be raised to cover then they should be

I think my generation (boomers) is hated by younger generations quite enough as it is. This country is facing enough trouble and will be asking far more from working age taxpayers as it is. Asking them to pay for the care for a wealthy generation already reviled for its greed would be a step too far.

Mental health issues, separated from age-related degenerative brain diseases, is just such an open-ended catch-all-bag that, as a tax payer, it gives me the heebie-jeebies. It seems like everyone argues they have MH issues. I am 64, and have lived in slums and suburbs over those years, and I have known a LOT of people. And with huge apologies to people who really do have severe psychological illnesses, I do think that a percentage use it as a screen to escape responsibility.

Before you all flame me for being harsh, I simply compare my generation at university, from 1974 - 77, to my son's experience currently. I reckon 25-30% of his cohort would claim some MH issue. I knew no one, but I did know a few people who had consultations with MH professionals. I am not convinced that admitting weakness is better than confronting weakness.

My DSIL wants to inherit half DMILs residual assets, because she's never earned enough to own her home after a bloody divorce. And at 57, she's facing a bleak future without them. She has worked hard, all her life, in poorly paid low skill work, and it looks like it's not enough, and there's not enough time, to fill in the gaps. So she wants to salvage what she can for her own future. In her shoes, I'd feel the same, but it's the money DPILs earned, and theirs to spend.

Before you all flame me for being harsh, I simply compare my generation at university, from 1974 - 77, to my son's experience currently. I reckon 25-30% of his cohort would claim some MH issue. I knew no one, but I did know a few people who had consultations with MH professionals. I am not convinced that admitting weakness is better than confronting weakness

We had a lot of certainties & advantages though didn't we?
Free HE, a guaranteed choice of jobs, cheap housing and rent.
freedom to play outside on streets and lanes that even in the 70s & 80s had far fewer cars.
We had the worry of nuclear war but tbh it wasn't really an issue i (or anyone else i knew) spent a lot of time considering, unlike climate change or plastic pollution.

I think its good that younger people can talk about their MH, our generation seemed to suffer in silence.

Xing, any doctor I know recommends comfort measures only for those in advanced degenerative conditions. The aim is, rightly, not to save. One thing that could be improved on is communicating this, early, to the patient and their family.

@HeyGirlHeyBoy

Xing, any doctor I know recommends comfort measures only for those in advanced degenerative conditions. The aim is, rightly, not to save. One thing that could be improved on is communicating this, early, to the patient and their family.

I wish someone had told the doctors that when they prescribed my mum course after course of antibiotics. I had to ask them to stop in the end. They even asked if she should be given a flu jab a month before she died. It was me pushing them to stop trying to keep her alive.

That's dreadful vinyl. I am grateful we have a medic in the family that understood it and communicated it early, supporting me to refuse pointless scans etc and in the end we were finally told plainly that no, they don't keep alive at all costs. It was eye opening and allowed us make our peace with it quickly. DM died at home in no pain after a long, long battle and that felt like a win after it all. I'm sorry your mum was put through that.

Thank you @HeyGirlHeyBoy. To be fair, the care home nursing staff were completely on board with doing the right thing for her, it was the GP that was the problem. I was asked about the flu jab only to be told after ten minutes of agonising indecision that Mum had already declined it, so I don’t know what that was about.

The nursing staff agreed with me that she should be kept out of hospital at all costs and the care was absolutely brilliant. I honestly couldn’t fault them.

Well good, I'm glad. Did her GP know her?? It was the gp, a young woman, who had that conversation with me, I'll never forget it. She gave me an hour on the phone after hours and I will always be grateful to her for joining the dots for me.

Just to throw another idea into the mix..as I understand it, here in France, children are legally responsible for providing care for their aged parents. If the parent goes into a home, and does not have the assets to pay for it, the authorities will pursue the children for the costs - and if they are deemed able to pay, they are required by law to do so - selling property etc to do so.

If the children don’t have any assets either, then the authorities advance the costs of care on the parents estate, and recoup what they can after death.

I imagine this would go down like a lead balloon in the U.K.!

Before you all flame me for being harsh, I simply compare my generation at university, from 1974 - 77, to my son's experience currently. I reckon 25-30% of his cohort would claim some MH issue.

But society has changed so much - I was at college late 60s-70s, I doubt the DCs who were gay, lesbian or whatever not readily accepted group had great mental health. And the priviliged from wealthier middle class homes went to uni. I didn't, college for NHS quals then, not did DH, primary teachers did a certificate level qual.
Uni was for the doctors or lawyers, teacher's DCs in my experience.
Most kids went into a trade or profession from school. Often didn't leave home. I suppose we knew our abilities and path in life better. Fewer options. so less stress.

@miimblemomble

Just to throw another idea into the mix..as I understand it, here in France, children are legally responsible for providing care for their aged parents. If the parent goes into a home, and does not have the assets to pay for it, the authorities will pursue the children for the costs - and if they are deemed able to pay, they are required by law to do so - selling property etc to do so.

If the children don’t have any assets either, then the authorities advance the costs of care on the parents estate, and recoup what they can after death.

I imagine this would go down like a lead balloon in the U.K.!

Really!!!! Oh dear!

my parents were a pair of bastards I left home as quickly as I could and had as little to do with them as possible, if I thought I was going to be legally responsible for their care......😱
My god what a terrible thought, how do people in France cope with this 😳

oil0W0lio

my parents were a pair of bastards I left home as quickly as I could and had as little to do with them as possible, if I thought I was going to be legally responsible for their care......😱
My god what a terrible thought, how do people in France cope with this 😳 “

Even if they’d been lovely but just irresponsible with money but you hadn’t, that still wouldn’t be right, would it?
Might as well be asked to pay for our elderly neighbours. I have about as much influence over their spending as I do my (thankfully prudent) parents.
What a ridiculous policy.