Cost of social care. Aibu

[Onlyifyouknewthetruth2026]

My son gets overnight respite 2 nights a month. Not a great amount but still respite. I have attached a pic showing the annual cost which is alot. Just for reference.

Got me thinking about social care and money.
With a aging population and more calls for social care no wonder it's on its knees
Im curious what others think about the cost.

Canada and the Netherlands allow euthanasia for those with disabilities. I believe/ think that they've both expanded the criteria after it was initially allowed.

The more severely disabled will always be looked after thankfully, and they are the ones with the expensive packages of care costing thousands just to keep them safe and those around them safe.

The answer is collective care plus (for those with capacity) assisted dying. Neither will ever happen. Hope I die before I get old etc.

@ExtraHotDoubleShot they existed you just didn't encounter them.

Watch The Silent Minority, 1981. There are some parts on Youtube.

I mean tell that to the kids thrown off the Tate and into a crocodile pit

There were non verbal children when I was a child, silly to suggest that there weren't.

And anxious teens aren't receiving the type of help we are discussing here, if they receive any help at all.

There are however more children surviving than would have previously - the ones severely premature or who have had strokes or other severe trauma at birth or shortly after. That is increasing the numbers of disabled children.

Phased roll out proposed starts with elderly but is intended for all.

I've no time for we cant afford thing when we spend so much propping up private care / companies ...we need to take the profits away ...they haven't led to better care ony price gouging

I’m a single adopter of two. My elder child has nearly broken me. My youngest is coming close. My eldest is in a specialist residential college for their specific and primary disability. It’s only a 35-week placement. I’m expected to ‘house’ in the holidays, even though it’s extremely challenging and actually I don’t have any legal responsibility any more as they are an adult. My local authority has offered me six hours of respite for the whole of half-term. They presented it to me like it was the biggest gift ever. My eldest has nowhere else to go as literally no one else would have them. I had to phone the emergency duty team a few weeks back, when my youngest assaulted me and the social worker who FINALLY called me back shared with me that my local authority is paying £17K a week to accommodate a child presenting with the same complex needs as my youngest. Anyway, I’m very grateful to the government for the £86 a week in Carer’s Allowance.

What about children like my nephew who will never have any “quality of life?”. No amount of therapy will
help him walk, talk, eat unaided, see. I’m not sure the purpose is in keeping him alive. I don’t know if he’s in constant pain. Possibly.

But no one wants to have that conversation.

Austerity is seeing to that our improvements in infant mortality are stalling and falling behind other parts of the world.
Corridor care is leading to unexpected excess deaths. There is already a kind of cull happening our Emergency Service Drs have given weekly numbers for deaths that shouldn't have happened. See also maternity service scandals

There's a haunting short story about someone dying and discovering that they have to experience life as every single human being before they get to ascend to heaven. I often wonder how differently people would think about uncontrolled suffering if they knew this to be so.

I hear you @ThePieceHall adopter of 2 here too - and the lack of support absolutely drives the breakdown of adoption costing hundreds of thousands of pounds more than giving the right support when cracks started to show.

What do you mean by 36 children? Under what service?

There are 3 children in my service alone (out of nearly 600) who have residential settings (not LD/physical disability, not a residential school) who have million pound placements.

Two are well over 20k a week, the other is 19k. We have plenty more in the teens per week.

What conversation? That his life should be ended? By whom?

It's difficult because it's talking about thee intrinsic value of a human being - is there value to someone simply being alive, or does quality of increase their value? Is it quality of life or how much value they may bring to society?

A very, very difficult conversation, and I'm not 100% sure what side of the fence I'm on taking in to consideration my experience of the care systems, my religious and moral beliefs and my personal experience.

Nobody but that means perhaps years of shrieking in the dark, unheard.

Those are not the people we're talking about. I knew of a person who wouldn't ever be allowed into a public space he was so violent.

The problem is, because a LA treats it's staff better with proper sick pay, maternity etc etc, it's more expensive for LAs to provide the care in house. It was Thatcher who started to close all that down and let the private sector do it on the cheap, but they do it by treating their workers badly.

Why aren't we talking about them?

That's the figure the children's commission have published. 36 are £1million placements. 3 in your service. None in mine. Probably evens out in the 150 odd authorities.

Because their care packages are fairly average in cost.

The cost of social care is one of the reasons why cousin marriage needs to be banned.

What sort of placements?

I can tell you now there are far far more in the UK than this!

These 3 were made in the last month or so in any case. Ive had many in the past 4 or 5 years just in my team

My service is not the entire cohort in my LA in any case, we are just one area of it.

It's awful how many people are dying because the NHS can't afford cutting edge care so bespoke million pounds a year care packages rumble on

You've misunderstood the figures. Ive just looked it up

These are unregistered placements which also happen to cost over 20k a week

There are far far more children in registered placements which cost over 20k a week. Not just 36