Old age, new tax!

THE crisis in social care is not going away. Latest figures from the charity Age UK show 1,000 elderly people are admitted to hospital every day simply due to a lack of adequate social care.

I know too well how patients can languish on medical wards, waiting for the social care to be put in place so they can return to their own homes, or for a care home place to be found.

It is grossly unfair on patients and puts them at risk of infections and a general deterioration in health: increasingly immobile and lacking the mental stimulation of a nonhospital environment.

It is also a shameful waste of muchneeded NHS beds. Calling the old and frail ‘bed blockers’ is distasteful, but through no fault of their own that’s what they are. The Government’s social care green paper this autumn will set out plans for addressing this escalating crisis. But the harsh truth is ministers have few options. The system desperately needs more cash and I’m afraid tax-payers must cough up.

The alternative is a social care system not fit for purpose, that compromises the efficient functioning of the NHS, denies many the medical care they need and lets down the elderly.

I dislike the idea of extra tax, but I dislike even more the idea of inadequate care when I’m old and infirm.

A social care tax — ring-fenced so it isn’t subsumed by other expenditure — would let us start building the sort of 21st-century care system expected of the world’s sixth largest economy.

If we don’t, then as former Labour leader Neil Kinnock once said (albeit in a very different context): ‘I warn you not to grow old’.