CAROLINE ABRAHAMS

Age UK Charity Director

WHEN we talk to older people, they often tell us that they really value social care because it makes life better for them – but then they often add it was quite a struggle to get it.

Essentially, that’s the story behind the new statistics today. In the last year for which data are available, 2022-2023, nearly 30,000 older people in England died waiting for social care that they didn’t live long enough to receive.

I fear that means many of them will have spent their last weeks and months without the support they needed, so they were less comfortable than they should have been as they neared the end of their lives.

Even if care professionals are in a hurry because of heavy caseloads, having a cheery chat and knowing someone will be stopping by can buoy up your self-confidence and make it easier to get through the day.

In addition, family members who are caring for older relatives in declining health often say the stress of bearing all that responsibility is one of the hardest things – something I felt too when I helped care for my mum.

But if you are sharing the load with paid care professionals, it makes it a little bit easier – you are not entirely on your own and if you are worried, there’s someone with whom to check out your concerns.

The problem is local authorities are swamped with lots of valid requests for social care, but without the funding or staff resources to process those applications quickly, and sometimes to provide the actual care.

Older people get stuck in the system, always waiting for something, such as an assessment, sometimes for months at a time. As a result, long delays have become quite common and, for older people without time on their side, ultimately care can arrive too late.

This is just another reason why the next government must grasp the problems facing social care and bring forward funded solutions.

Older people have already waited too long.