Five years on from the changes to Pension Credit and now the Winter Fuel Allowance

[JenniferBooth]

have your parents or yourselves or anyone you know been affected. As a younger partner have you been working full time AND caring. Or did it get too much and one had to give. Many will also not be able to claim PC as the new state pension is over the PC threshold. Note......im posting on the elderly parents board not AIBU.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/3479693-Changes-to-Pension-Credit?page=1

My wife and I are both 77 years old. I get a state pension with a small extra as I worked for about a year past my 65th birthday. My wife has a works pension as well as her state pension.
We need to heat the house as she feels cold since having chemotherapy. She gets attendance allowance and I get disability living allowance as I had polio as a child.
I think the winter fuel allowance should go to people on health-related benefits.

I don't think winter fuel allowance should be universal. Child
benefit no longer is. Yes to those pensioners on PC, or claiming health related benefits etc getting it and I think some work needs to be done identifying pensioners who don't get PC but are only just over the eligibility line. And I am concerned for pensioners trapped privately renting, but that's a growing issue into the future.

DH would have been getting winter fuel allowance in a few years but frankly we can easily afford to heat the house so don't need it. We have a sensible, energy-efficient house chosen and renovated with that in mind.

The generation above me (late 70-80s) and the remaining one alive in the generation above that (90s) also didn't need it but still got it. The money was mostly donated to charity, as was the case with many of the elderly people I know! I did wonder when the change was announced what the impact would be on local charities no longer receiving these donations!

What would be preferable is more encouragement/support to downsize and availability of well-insulated energy-efficient, accessible and appealing flats. How many of the people struggling to pay heating bills are living in big family houses, with poor energy performance and most of the space not used?

I can't help wondering too about the implications of the "Home First" policy where social services insist on keeping people in their own homes as long as possible (with huge amounts of daughterly support required!) and 4x carer visits per day. It's got to be far more inefficient heating all those individual (probably older, large and poorly insulated) homes to often tropical temperatures than to have a care home designed for energy efficiency (I doubt a lot of CH are energy efficient though as many use older buildings!).

But that would require sorting out social care too

Well many of the younger partners who were/have been affected by the Pension Credit change five years ago will now likely be working and then coming home to care OR refusing to do both which will have placed more of a burden on social care. I did point this out at the time. And i dont think older people should be expected to live in flats unless its ground floor. The only reason we didnt have another tragedy in Dagenham this week was down to pure luck!

Many elderly people live perfectly happily in flats, benefitting from neighbours close by, lower running costs and often being closer to local amenities. Everything from social housing to McCarthy and Stone type accommodation is flats! Far more practical than detached bungalows on the outskirts of towns with enormous gardens and a long distance from shops, GP etc.