Today Age UK publishes new research showing that nearly 900,000 older people aged 65-89 in England with a social care need are without any support. Nearly a third of older people who have difficulty in carrying out an essential daily task like washing or dressing do not receive any formal help from care workers or any informal help from family, friends or neighbours. They are being left to struggle alone, with significant risks to their health and their independence.
These figures represent a worsening of the situation – in 2011 research showed that 800,000 older people with a social care need were missing out. The dataset which forms the basis of the new analysis stops at age 89: how many people in their 90s are now without help I wonder?
To a great extent this deterioration is no surprise and it is a direct result of our underinvestment in social care. Over the last 20 years state funding for social care stagnated and then fell at the same time as the demand for social care has been increasing because we are living longer: the biggest users of social care are the over 85s, the fastest growing group in our population. Between 2005-6 and 2012-13 the number of people aged 65 and over in receipt of social care services dropped by more than a quarter, while the same age group increased by more than 1,000,000.
Politicians have repeatedly ‘kicked the social care can down the road’. However, there comes a point at which this is no longer tenable and Age UK believes we have now reached it. The statistics we have published today are the result of us putting off tough decisions – as too are the atrocious terms and conditions which many frontline care workers have to endure.
Some suggest a fully integrated health and care system is the answer. We certainly agree that bringing services closer together around individual older people is the right approach and in the medium term it should also be cost effective. However, unfortunately ‘integration’ will not in and of itself fill today’s growing gap between the demand for and supply of social care. More local projects that foster stronger community ties will not do it either – they could play a fantastic role in alleviating the loneliness experienced by far too many older people and they might even help some to sustain their resilience and slow down their need for care, but they are not a convincing answer for an older person who finds it hard to prepare a meal, get out of the bath or put on their shoes unaided.
These people – nearly 900,000 in total – need some basic help they can depend on every day. Without it life becomes more and more restricted and independence increasingly hard to sustain. We would not want that depressing outlook for ourselves or for our parents or grandparents, and they too are right to expect more.
That is why Age UK is clear that we need to face up to this long-term policy failure and develop strategies to narrow and then close the social care funding gap, even though this will also mean having a difficult conversation with the public about how it can best be paid for. Current polling suggests the public may be more receptive to this than many politicians may think because they are increasingly seeing the dire results of poor care among their own families and friends. And not only is this the right thing to do, it would also be of huge assistance to the NHS which has to pick up the pieces of a failing social care system when older people become weak and ill in the absence of the care support they need. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the NHS will not thrive until we resolve the crisis in social care.
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Caroline Abrahams is charity director at Age UK
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You can read Age UK’s report here
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Photo: Catherine Smith