A better way to care for our elderly neighbours

SIR – In view of the growing number of people with complex social care needs, perhaps now is the time to consider a better way to care for those requiring help at home.

If everyone aged between 16 and 70 was encouraged, with a tax concession as an incentive, to give a few hours per week to visiting and helping one or more elderly people within walking distance, we would solve the problem.

We might even find there are additional benefits, such as better community cohesion, less obesity, reduced loneliness and an improvement in our national sense of wellbeing. Churches, which lie at the heart of every community and which used to provide much local social care, could become training and coordination centres. Mike Tyler

Worthing, West Sussex SIR – A pension system-style plan to fund social care would be a firm step towards ending the dementia tax (Letters, September 18). It would share the potential risk of needing to pay for dementia care between everyone, and protect people from shouldering costs of up to half a million pounds.

However, for people with dementia who require more complex and expensive care, there needs to be consideration of how those extra costs are met. Spending £100,000 on care is sadly the rule rather than the exception for people with dementia.

One route would be for these extra health costs to be met by the NHS. Just as there’s a Cancer Drugs Fund, a Dementia Care Fund would stop people with dementia being financially crippled by a disease they were unfortunate enough to develop. Sally Copley

Director of Policy and Campaigns, Alzheimer’s Society London EC3