As Polly Toynbee argued in the Guardian last month, the ramifications of the present social care crisis are only just starting to hit home. The ageing of our populations is, with global warming, the greatest threat to our welfare state.
A major problem that confronts everyone tackling this issue is the non-uniform nature of social care provision. Putting care under the responsibility of local councils often leads not to the ideal of decision-making being efficiently tailored to local needs, but to the cutting of services in order to balance budgets.
Toynbee was right to point this out, but we need to look at the bigger picture. This is an international problem that requires an international solution.
The EU has twenty-seven member states with devolved care provision similar to the UK. Co-ordination on future action is tricky. However, the European Parliament is taking steps in the right direction. I recently steered a report through parliament that will provide matched funding for cross-border research into Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) technology.
This technology enables people to live entirely independently into their old age. It includes a range of devices, from sensors that monitor when someone might be about to have a heart attack to remote controls that close the windows if a house gets too cold. Relatives and medical professionals can monitor an elderly person’s activity and intervene if necessary.
So I was delighted when Alan Johnson recently committed the government to investing in such technology. Amid all the discussion on how to fund future care provision, there were only a few mentions of the economic benefits that enabling people to live longer at home will bring. If we spend some money now, household AAL systems will bring vast benefits later.
Businesses will benefit, too. The commercial potential of integrating the technologies we already have in our homes is clear. All of us, not just elderly people, would be keen to invest in systems that allow us to live in greater comfort.
Maybe when the full public realisation of the extent of this crisis finally comes, we will find the impetus needed to go the whole way. Gordon Brown has chosen a pressing question on which to build his political fightback. For now, if the Prime Minister wants to make a truly serious contribution to social care provision, he should seriously consider helping elderly people stay in their own homes.