To be concerned wrt the future when there are so many people needing support?

[Jupitersmoonandstars]

Prepared to be told IABU, but since covid, and more especially, the lockdowns, I have noticed how many people need quite a lot of support from outside of their families, and I am becoming increasingly concerned about how we will manage to support so many people now and in the future.
I admit, I was completely astonished at the sheer numbers of people who need assistance to even buy food, so many people who either cannot drive yet dont live close to a supermarket so rely heavily on online deliveries, people who cannot shop alone due to their mental health, people who are too frail to shop, people who are longterm too sick to shop.
There seemed to be so many more people than I expected who were completely dependent on a delivery service and when they couldn't get a slot, were understandably panicking!
People who couldn't get their prescriptions, people who didnt have enough money to buy food and needed to use the services of a food bank, people who couldn't get the medical or therapeutic help they needed. People whose operations and procedures were postponed causing massive amounts of stress and anxiety.
People suffering from serious mental health conditions which impact their day to day lives considerably.

As I read more and more on social media community pages, and forums about how utterly dependent on services so many people are, it began to make me extremely concerned how we, as a society, are going to be able to adequately support people who rely on others, now and into the future.

I began to realise that almost all of the families, friends and neighbours
I know have at least one member of their family who is in great need of support, without which, they would be unable to access supermarkets or medical needs, and this adds up to a huge amount of people overall in the UK.

Am I seeing this from a skewed perspective?

Are there people in your circle who depend on outside support to carry out basic functions?
What can be done to help support these people?
Are we doing enough?

In my family and friends circle, many of us are needed to help support other members of our families, and without that support, life would be incredibly difficult if not impossible for those people.
I'm quite happy to assist my family and friends but should I find myself unable to help, what help is available? What would happen to these people? Am I catastrophising?

YABU There is only a small percentage of people whose health or age prevents them from coping independently and as such, only a small amount of people depend on outside help in order to afford or perform basic tasks to enable them to buy the food and access the medical help amongst other things they need and I dont know anyone in my own circle who is dependent on others to help them to get what they need?

YANBU We are seeing more and more people who need support to afford or perform basic tasks to enable them to get the food/medical help they need amongst other things and not enough is being done to support these people adequately.

@MorningStarling

I think the way out of this is through robots and AI. It's a way off yet but it won't be many decades before robots can reliably be trusted to carry out care work, diagnose illnesses, give therapy and fill almost any medical need.

People might not think that is as good as having a network of humans doing the jobs, but there will become a point where robots can do the job more efficiently and without human error.

I think the key is to get robots that look, smell and behave as real people. If they are indistinguishable from the real thing, they will become more acceptable. The current system of having too few resources thinly spread, people getting poor quality of care or not enough of it, can and will be replaced. It will be a phased process of course, it can't happen overnight.

I don't disagree with the idea, but the thing about robots is you can't exploit them, you can't guilt trip them and you can't bully them. They just will not do things that they are programmed not to, and if they're programmed to do something that's wrong, then the provider will not be able to hide behind the robot and blame them for bad practice, like they currently do with humans. You can't tell a robot to keep quiet about bad practice under threat of their job, robust safeguards would need to be built in around programming and reporting, and that will mean everything needs to be done properly, above board and that is going to cost money.

You can't guilt trip a robot that's out of charge to stay on and do the night shift because another robot is out of action, if they're broken they need to be fixed, there's no disciplinary for a robot that's malfunctioning and can't complete it's tasks. It needs fixing or it needs replacing.

I just can't see anyone (government, society, providers) stumping up the sort of cash that would be needed to invest and maintain this kind of technology to provide proper care. They'd have to invest in proper numbers and programming and maintenance or they'd be caught out cutting corners and costs like they do now and have no one to hide behind.
I mean in principle, it's a fantastic idea to improve the standard of care, but it will come at the cost of profit and I don't think providers are going to take kindly to that.
It would only work if there was a massive culture change in the area that puts care before money, and I can't see any will for that happening.
If people were invested in properly to care for those who need it, then care would still improve, there's no appetite for that though.

Not rtft but this used to called community.

People lived and worked locally. Many more SAHMs. People had more capacity to help others, look after their neighbours and family.

These days we are battered by austerity, cuts to services, covid, zero hour contracts/ stagnant wages and rising house prices. Family's are scattered. Few family's can afford a sahp. It's harder to volunteer/offer help when are struggling to keep afloat yourself.

People are living longer and with multiple illnesses. The NHS is seriously creaking under the strain. Mental health services were slashed in the great austerity drive.

Society is better set up in some aspects- online deliverys/ internet, but the community safety nets and state safety nets gave large holes in them which it's easy to fall through.

The answer isn't more state help - the answer is more people standing on their own two feet and taking responsibility for themselves.

@Fr0thandBubble

The answer isn't more state help - the answer is more people standing on their own two feet and taking responsibility for themselves.

How does my 85yo XMIL with advanced dementia and arthritis do that, do you propose?

And she saved plenty for the rainy day, and worked and paid in all her life. Her house has long since been sold to fund care. Which I agree with.

But I’m really too sure how she’s going to stand on her arthritis riddled two feet, or indeed how she’ll understand that she has to stand, with her dementia riddled mind.

Interested in your suggestion though 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Fr0thandBubble

The answer isn't more state help - the answer is more people standing on their own two feet and taking responsibility for themselves.

FGS, so what will you do if you become seriously ill and disabled and bedbound and you need a carer, or several, and no matter how much money you have, there are no carers available? Because that is happening now.

1. as others have said, some of these issues were due to a very specific issue (lockdown) - some people usually cope, for example, with their family getting their shopping but this was curtailed when family members themselves had to isolate/weren't allowed to travel etc. They were a very specific one off, not indicative of general, ongoing issues.

2. similar to above, lots of people would usually be able to do these things for themselves, but because of age/illness etc were advised to isolate only due to this very specific circumstance (air born virus disproportionately affecting the old and clinically vulnerable). So the only reason lots of people needed delivery slots was because they were specifically told by the govt not to go out. It isn't applicable that the same will happen in the future just because of an aging population.

3. back in the day there were still people with various physical and mental health issues, but because there weren't other options they HAD to go out and fend for themselves. Same might apply in the future. Not saying it's ideal/easy or dismissing anyone's illness, physical or mental, but if the choice is between going to the supermarket/starving to death SOME people will have to, and be able to, force themselves to go. Obviously some won't be able to, but others only don't "cope" now because help is (rightly) available.

4. we could arrange things a lot easier for people who struggle for whatever reason, e.g. more autism friendly hours, shops open 24/7 so people can go in the middle of the night when it's quiet, free shuttle buses to supermarkets etc.

5. In home care will be the biggest issue. I can see the end of council/govt funded home care because too many people will need it. Unfortunately I think it might end up being a case of either paying (A LOT) for private care in your own home, or having to go to a centralised home if you can't afford it. No option for free/subsidised care at home. For all disabled/elderly people.

6. An alternative would be an increase in IT so we basically have robots that are capable of caring for people. Sounds mad but are we that far off? People can already use alexa/even their fridge to record what food they need, order it online and have it delivered without ever leaving the house.

7. The other alternative would be we realise how much we need people who will work hard for minumum wage, and completley reverse brexit to employ staff from other countries as carers.

8. Or we could start putting enough money in from the time children are born to try and stop various issues ever developing so people have the support they need throughout their life to be as self-sufficient as possible...but that would require upfront investment, a degree of forward planning, and a smidgen of care for others so unlikely to happen with our current government

@MaChienEstUnDick is right- a major cause of this is that our economy and society were always heavily reliant on women’s unpaid labour, and this has now largely been withdrawn. There were just as many people who needed care and support in the past, and they got it from their mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces… who are now busy doing paid work, or living too far away. And people who didn’t have that help available for whatever reason just fell through the cracks and didn’t survive. We don’t find either of those alternatives acceptable now*, but we haven’t worked out a palatable alternative, because we aren’t prepared to pay what it really costs either.

*I suspect the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg are actually completely fine with both of these options, hence they aren’t trying that hard to fix it.