9 ELDERLY PEOPLE DIE EVERY HOUR OF THE COLD.

[ivanhoe]

THOUSANDS of pensioners died from cold-related illnesses last winter as heating bills soared and temperatures plummeted, official figures reveal.

The number of deaths linked to the cold between December and March reached 25,400 in England and Wales, with another 2,760 in Scotland.

The figures are equivalent to nine deaths every hour.

The total gave Britain the highest winter death rate in northern Europe, worse than much colder countries such as Finland and Sweden.

There are fears the death toll could increase this year following energy price rises which may frighten elderly people into not turning on their heating.

Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ?It?s unacceptable that tens of thousands more older people die in this country every winter from the effects of the cold weather.

The fact that the UK has one of the highest winter mortality rates in Europe makes it clear this is very much a home-grown problem.

dotnet, Caring about the elderly as I do, I have been in regular contact with the DWP, and would describe them as a "cold hearted" Government body, just doing their job.

I have a friend who travels Europe and America widely, he is a politician, a Democratic Socialist.

He told me that some years ago he was working on behalf of a pensioner he knew, and got into contact with the DWP.

The DWP quoted statistic after statistic to my friend, who then aked them, "dont you people feel anything", to which the reply came, "we are not paid to "feel".

It is good news that the link pensions/earnings link IS going to be restored from April (unless I'm out of date and the idea has been jettisoned, but I don't think so.)

I'll look out for Affluenze by Oliver James, he's very readable, thanks to whoever recommended it (I don't want to go back to check who it was, in case I lose what I'm writing now and have to do it again.) I liked his piece of writing, a booklet inserted in one of the broadsheets a long time ago subtitled 'How your parents f....d you up'; it was all about family relationships.

ivanhoe I entirely agree that the DWP is a coldhearted government body, its staff just doing their job! The work is pressured, and getting worse. I hated it.

BUT every individual is different and some DO put more effort into checking if extra help, like Attendance Allowance, might be a possibility for people who need it.

You probably know there is a Visiting Officer service. It's good, I think. DWP staff, on application, will call at people's homes to help them fill in forms etc.

Staff do NOT have a brief to try to avoid letting people have their entitlements, the Department of Work and Pensions doesn't operate like an insurance company!

Faults and failures are more by omission than commission. Apparently there's a 20% staff turnover every year, which is a hell of a lot and an indication, I think, both of the pressure of the work AND of the way DWP staff are treated.

dotnet

The coalition has stated it will restore the state pensions link with earnings in 2012, but only if it's 'affordable'.

David Cameron is on record as saying this, and it is an argument all on it's own.

Recent information sent to me from the Department of Works and Pensions leaked the fact that plans were being made to scrap the means-tested Pensions Credit, and raise the state pension to £140 a week.

If implemented by the coalition this would ensure that millions of pensioners would lose their council tax benefit etc, and therefore be much worse off than they are today.

So saying that the earnings link is gong to be restored in April, is nothing to cheer about, it is vague, there is nothing affirmed.

In either case it's too little, and 30 odd years too late.

Just how many millions of our elderly people have suffered untimely deaths through hypothermia related illness over the years god only knows.

////dotnet Thu 27-Jan-11 13:04:30
ivanhoe I entirely agree that the DWP is a coldhearted government body, its staff just doing their job! The work is pressured, and getting worse. I hated it.

BUT every individual is different and some DO put more effort into checking if extra help, like Attendance Allowance, might be a possibility for people who need it.

You probably know there is a Visiting Officer service. It's good, I think. DWP staff, on application, will call at people's homes to help them fill in forms etc.

Staff do NOT have a brief to try to avoid letting people have their entitlements, the Department of Work and Pensions doesn't operate like an insurance company!

Faults and failures are more by omission than commission. Apparently there's a 20% staff turnover every year, which is a hell of a lot and an indication, I think, both of the pressure of the work AND of the way DWP staff are treated.//////

We Bitish should force "government" to pay out a decent livable State pension to all our elderly people and be done wth it.

Ha! That's interesting, the thing about the £140 a week pension for all, ivanhoe. I'd heard something about that, and then it seemed to go cold - I thought the idea had been abandoned as unaffordable.

It seems I'd misunderstood. In the piece I heard on the radio, it wasn't made clear that the Pension Credit would be scrapped entirely - I thought the idea was to bring up the rate of the basic pension from £97 to £140. Too good to be true, I thought - not a predictable Tory tack.

Ha! What you say makes sense though - if Pension Credit were scrapped, then that WOULD save money AND it would hit the worst off the hardest. It would mean the pensioners with small savings who currently get the 'reward' of 'Savings Credit', would no longer get that (because that too is a top-up, designed to take people with small savings a bit beyond the basic Pension Credit level (as a sort of acknowledgement of the savings efforts they'd made).

Not sure you're right about the knock on effect of becoming ineligible for council tax benefit or housing benefit though. £140 a week is £7,280 a year, isn't it - what is the maximum income for claiming council tax benefit/Housing Benefit?

It isn't government that will have to pay the 'decent livable' state pension you demand. It's your children and grandchildren. The same children who know they will face a lower standard of living than you, and who will have to support a lot more retirees between them than you ever did. We just can't afford it.

If even with the rest of society subsidising your council tax and your heat, you cannot afford to heat your house it's nature's way of telling you to move out of the big three bedroomed semi and into a cosy flat. Given that younger generations can expect no more than six months security of tenure in our rented homes I hope you'll excuse us scoffing at your branding any such move 'traumatic'.

When the boomers and the cohorts of 1920, and 1900 were in work and 'paying their dues' each retiree was in essence supported by the taxes of SIX workers. Today's children will have to support one retiree between every TWO of them. A three times heavier burden. Imagine if it was you being crushed under this yoke. It cannot be done.

Despite living in an age of final salary pensions, houses for three times salary not six, jobs if not for life that lasted for decades and free university education, the boomers and 1920 and 1900 cohorts before them still haven't managed to pay their way for their own retirements. The boomers are claiming 118% of the pension pot they managed to acrue during their working lives. For every pound they put in they are getting £1.18 out. Doesn't sound like the generation that's being put upon to me. Sounds like a very good deal.

They are already living almost 20% beyond their means. Despite having a lifetime of earnings behind them, they are using up that 18% of the cash put in by younger workers, who can already expect a lower standard of retirement, and face having to work til they are much older. And what do these older generations do? Do they quietly accept that they are the lucky ones and realise that asking for even more is abhorrant. They do not. They shriek for more. It's hideous.

I just put my beautiful baby son down for his nap, and I thought about whether I'd be able to do what you're doing: frisking his pockets for cash and shrieking at him (in hysterical capslock OP) for even more. I could not. I would be utterly ashamed.

Go back to your Daily Mails, maybe take up a new hobby, go and help out at your local day centre for the elderly if you like. But please, please drop this perverse victim complex. It's hideous.

Pop It is tougher for younger people (but I really, really don't want DC to scrap Pension Credit and reduce some 'borderline hard-up' people's incomes. Old people are not able to fight back - soft targets.)

It's the students who are the worst off -being shat on from a very great height. I am SO ashamed about what is being done to them. You're right, THEY will be paying our pensions in our old age at the same time as having to pay off sodding shitty massive loans for their education AND trying (and probably fail) to get mortgages! It's not fair and it's not right. I wish more middle aged people and young parents would join the students' protests. I don't believe the students have given up all hope, and they need help from all of us to fight Cameron's grand plan of universities modelled on public schools.

//////It's the students who are the worst off -being shat on from a very great height. I am SO ashamed about what is being done to them. You're right, THEY will be paying our pensions in our old age at the same time as having to pay off sodding shitty massive loans for their education AND trying (and probably fail) to get mortgages! It's not fair and it's not right. I wish more middle aged people and young parents would join the students' protests. I don't believe the students have given up all hope, and they need help from all of us to fight Cameron's grand plan of universities modelled on public schools.////

It is both generations, the young and the old are being neglected wholesale, and we are doing nothing about it.

Poppet456, A few facts for you that have responded so far, and in no particular order.

Means testing pensioners is costing £15 per person per pensioner.

Restoring the State pension link with national average wages would cost £5 per person per pensioner.

Conclusion ?. Means testing pensioners on a miserly £97 a week is costing more tax payers money than the restoration of the earnings link would cost.

Conclusion ?. The media and the politicians are keeping us in the dark.

The reason ?. Because right wing politics since Thatcher, ensures the demise of what the State provides, including a "State pension".

Fact. The Tory lead coalition are sitting on a National Insurance "surplus" of £40 billion, but the coalition are using this money for other things.

So, including foreign wars, upholding third worl countries, funding into the EU of £50 million a day, Britain is a very wealthy country.

If the headline statement is true; its truly shocking

And its ruddy cold again today. "Gabby"

This thread just became the Perfect Storm.

GabbyLoggon, Yes, the headine is true, and yes its truly shocking, but what is equally shocking are some of the remarks on here from so called caring adults.

Claig. Looked at Ayn Rand, on youtube. Found her very interesting. Others do as well, this book has sold over 25 million and 865.000 copies sold every year hmmm.

'Great posts by complimentary. Why aren't the caring, sharing socialists making more noise about the plight of our pensioners? Is it because they are old and vulnerable?

I have an elderly neighbour I keep an eye on Claig but thanks anyway.

And hello Ivanhoe good to see you are still so passionate 9and that's not a dig btw)

I am not sures student have it worst- and Dh is one so do understand that whole debate- the disabled are sstruggling too with prposals to cut 20% off from benefit support.

And three wrongs does not make a right.

Would I pay an extra 5p on income tax if it were fairly divvied between these groups?

Yes. they are our furure, our parents and our vulnerable.

'and who will have to support a lot more retirees between them than you ever did'

will be interesting to see if that pans out.

On one hand we have a prediction of a massively large elderly population; on another a prediction of everyone dying at 55 due to obesity.

Is it nature's way of balancing things out I wonder?

'Why aren't the caring, sharing socialists making more noise about the plight of our pensioners?'

I'm not talking about individuals like you. I'm talking about politicians, the ones who can make national policies to change the pensions system, not individuals who help people. But thanks anyway.

You don't seriously believe them when they say that everyone will die of obesity at 55, do you?

I tell you what Peachy, it's freezing today and this house is cold, I dread geting old!
Oh that ryhmed!

Claig. You and I know, that politicians of whatever political persuasion, realy don't care about the public, and especially the old and wrinkly kind!

Certainly 'Socialist' politicians don't.

exactly right, complimentary.

Complimentary, listen to this interview and you will see what Ayn rand is really all about. It's a great interview, but it really heats up at the 4.00 minute mark. She is effectively out to destroy religion, destroy altruism, and have every person working only for their own self interest. He calls her a revolutionary, and in her attempt to destroy religion and morality she is very similar to the Marxists.

She is very influential, because a lot of powerful people hold similar views. It is worth reading her because these views are behind certain policies. But the more you read about her, I think the more you will find that you don't agree with her.

'politicians of whatever political persuasion, realy don't care about the public'
She also doesn't care about the public, and probably some politicians agree with her views.

In interview 2, she wants to destroy the welfare system

she rejects democracy.

Complimentary "If you are old, poor and have no family in this coutry, you really are in the shite."

Are you suggesting that not having family in the UK makes people more vulnerable. Is there sound evidence or is this anecdotal evidence?

Winter deaths have been a problem for a long time and I agree its unnecessary and a pitiful indictment of the condition of our society. The vulnerable should be a priority whether they be young, old, poor or unable to fend for themselves in our complicated society.

I don't think we have ever had a time in our history when the vulnerable were adequately catered for.

I don't think politicians care about the public either

Otherwise they would up pensions and they wouldn't ahve stopped the cold weather payments to disabled people either.

It's crap; they're more worried about being in the news than helping people.

Ivanhoe I've never professed to be a caring adult. How can you profess to be a caring adult when you are trying to take extra cash that you didn't pay in to the system from a group who will be much poorer than you when they retire, and will have to work much longer than you will. Don't you feel even vaguely uneasy and a bit 'grabby' about it? Don't you see how unfair this is?
Pensioners and the young are not equally shafted - pensioners have the vote and have had it all their working lives to shape the political system we see today, what's happening now is a consequence of their choices in the past. Infants and the unborn don't have any vote and won't have for the next 18 years. Who do you think the politicians fear? Taking resources from the young is like taking candy from a baby.
Pensioners are currently playing with a pension pot that's 20% larger than the cash they put in. Young people's pension pots have already been raided by 20% by those 'equally vulnerable and shafted' pensioners. They are not equal by any means. They start out with 40% more pension pot resources than the younger group. And the pensioners are now arguing they should have even more. More than they themselves saved and paid for and more than the young can afford. How do they think the young will provide for themselves when there will only be two workers to pay the burden of every pensioner, when this generation can't manage to provide for themselves when there were six workers to each retiree. I don't think they're equally shafted at all. And when you look at the figures I don't think you can argue that at all. I see it as the older and richer and more powerful exploiting the younger, weaker and poorer. For all you claim to care, you don't care at all, you're eating your own young.