Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Care in crisis as money for help runs out
NELSON
NEARLY 22,000 elderly and vulnerable people will run out of cash before Boris Johnson’s care cap comes in, Labour has warned.
The PM is introducing an £86,000 lifetime limit on care costs – but not until October of 2023.
Labour analysis of social care applications to local authorities shows that 10,450 adults will run out of money before then.
Another 11,500 have already done so in the two years between Mr Johnson promising to fix the social care crisis and coming up with proposals.
Already 15 people a day are using up the last of their cash paying for social care, older people’s charity Age UK revealed.
Labour and Tory rebels oppose the care costs plans, under which people with a home and savings worth £100,000 will be left with £20,000 while someone with £270,000 would hold on to £184,000.
UNFAIR
Only the better-off will be able to afford to keep their higher-value homes under the scheme.
Elaine Yates, 72, has spent £45,000 on care at home in Irchester, Northants, for husband Michael, 76, who suffered a stroke.
But under the new rules that money will not be taken into account when the cap is introduced.
Mrs Yates said: “We will eventually lose our home. A system in which wealthy people get off lightly while those like us always have to pay is just cruel.”
Shadow Social Care minister Liz Kendall said: “It is unfair and wrong.”
Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, added: “Those people with the fewest assets, typically living in the Midlands and the North, will be especially disadvantaged.”