Crisis has over-50s ‘worried’ on future

OUR next generation of pensioners are determined to avoid care homes if they need help in old age, research has revealed.

The social care crisis is laid bare in a hard-hitting report which found 60 per cent of those surveyed describe themselves as “fearful” of the care home sector.

Two thirds (67 per cent) of those aged 50-plus wanted to stay in their own home with carers on hand.

As many as 35,720 elderly and vulnerable people have died in care homes across England and Wales since the start of the first lockdown last March.

A decision to transfer patients who had not been tested for Covid-19 out of hospitals into residential and nursing homes saw the virus cause chaos.

The scandal spotlighted the already parlous state of a system which almost buckled under the added pressures of the pandemic.

Before the outbreak, adult social care services faced a funding gap of almost £4billion by 2025.

And figures based on Department of Health data found more than 17,000 pensioners were forced to sell their homes to pay care costs in 2019.

Expensive

It means that 30 per cent of those who pay for their care have to sell their property.

More than half (57 per cent) of the 2,505 UK adults questioned for the poll slammed the system as “not fit for purpose” and are determined to steer clear.

Almost two thirds (63 per cent) said care is too expensive and 64 per cent cite a lack of investment, according to the Equity Release Council report.

And the desire to receive care at home grows stronger with age, rising to 76 per cent among the over-70s.

Damian Green, a Conservative MP and former minister and co-chair of the Social Care All-Party Parliamentary Group, said: “Even before the ravages of Covid ripped through our care homes, it was unquestioned that we need a massive improvement in the way we provide social care in this country.

“After the experience of the last year it is more urgent than ever. We don’t have enough people providing help at home.

“We have a system on the brink of collapse, but until now we have lacked the political will to save it.

“The vast majority of people agree that we need to spend more on social care.”