Star comment: Crisis over care for ageing population
Issues surrounding private care in the UK are deeply problematic. Successive Governments have failed to get to grips with the issue of an ageing population.
While the retirement age has risen, too little provision has been made to look after those in ageing years and declining health.
The nation is suffering a crisis of loneliness and unspoken poverty as the elderly are unable to turn on the heating, feed themselves properly or look after themselves. In an increasingly splintered society, they have too few people to look after them and many suffer in silence.
In hundreds of thousands of households family act as unpaid carers, soaking up colossal costs. Many provide care in desperate and intolerable circumstances, with no access to private transport and very limited ability to use public transport. Those who care seldom receive any respite.
Carers UK has called for a “step change in the way that Government and society supports and recognises carers”.