Any traveller coming into the UK on Sunday and who bought the Sunday Times would have read an article entitled “Care bills for elderly capped at £50,000″. Having read the article, they may well deduce that the UK’s old folk were in a tough situation, possibly having to sell their homes to fund the first £50,000. Had they read any other Sunday paper it is likely there would have been similar stories leading to the same conclusion. Well that conclusion is simply wrong!
The true fact is that the articles do not feature care in the UK, they feature care across England. Repeatedly we hear about NHS cuts, Local Authority redundancies, et al. In no case do the papers make it clear that these are English sacrifices, they do not affect Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Is it simply ignorance or is there connivance with the power elites who love things the way they are? It does seem a massive carelessness to fail to highlight such facts. The article regarding Care actually says “…crisis over Southern Cross, Britain’s biggest private care home provider…” the implication being this is a British problem – it is not.
Furthermore, the articles states, “About 20,000 people a year are forced to sell their homes…” That is correct, but these are just English people. It also states “The Treasury will be reluctant to take on any major liabilities in relation to care for the elderly until the deficit has been reduced…” Just think about that. The UK Treasury wants to wait to address the problem with English pensioners until the UK deficit is reduced. Meanwhile other parts of the UK get old age care funded. Is not the funding the other parts of the UK amongst other things that helped run up the deficit?
Please, please, please, do not let then get away with it. Write to the press asking them to be more accurate when describing the facts. They must not be allowed to get away with this!
#1 by JoolsB on 06/06/2011 - 2:34 PM
We know why the politicians refuse to say the word England even though most of their decisions nowadays only affect England – because they are deliberately trying to imply the whole UK is affected and we are all in this together which it isn’t and we are not. It is baffling and frustrating though why the media should behave in the same way. Even the right wing newspapers, with the odd exception now and again of the Daily Mail, are not highlighting this discrimination. Surprisingly the one organisation who have been guilty of this in the past, the BBC, have started pointing out when things only apply to England whereas Sky are still one of the worst offenders and never say the word England when they are reporting on tuition fees, schools, hospitals, library closures, care for the elderly, etc. Not only do they omit the word England but they commit the ultimate sin of using the word British instead of English such as when commenting on tuition fees referring to British students and British universities instead of English students and English universities. I have written to them to point this out and received a standard reply stating “viewers comments are always appreciated” – but obviously they are ignored!
#2 by Chris Cochrane on 15/06/2011 - 9:25 AM
There are a few mistakes in your post. The rules regarding the financing of residential care homes are the roughly the same in Scotland and England i.e. if you have capital greater than around £23, 000 then the resident has to finance the care home himself/herself. And yes, people in Scotland do have to sell their homes to finance this. It’s hard to get precise figures on this but I have been told that around 4,000 Scots a year have to sell their homes to finance residential care.
It is important to note that the free personal care available in Scotland is to cover things like personal hygiene, dressing and food preparation. It does not cover the accomodation costs in care homes.
If this £50,000 cap were introduced in England it would actually mean that old people in England would actually be in a better position than those in the rest of the UK.