Care future is ‘hazardous’ for the elderly with no children

MORE than four million elderly people will have no children to look after them within the next 20 years, putting huge pressure on the care system, a House of Lords report warned last night.

The parliamentary report said the future looks “extremely hazardous” for the growing number of people who do not have children.

The Lords adult social care committee said the country’s health and social care systems would “collapse” without the aid provided by unpaid relatives to the elderly and vulnerable.

It urged ministers not to assume that family members can “simply step in” to support those who cannot wash or dress themselves, particularly as more and more pensioners do not have living relatives to look after them.

The committee’s report estimated that there are already 1.2 million people aged over 65 with no children and that is set to rise to two million by the end of this decade and to double again to reach four million by 2040.

The peers’ study said: “For them, we were told that the prospect of ageing causes great fear, as the current system is ill-prepared to respond to their needs.

“This fear is not just of loneliness – ageing without children brings tangible challenges such as in undertaking lowlevel support tasks, personal tasks and navigating the complex social care system,” it added.

“The future looks extremely hazardous for people ageing without children, and yet they are a fast-growing group.”

The report pointed out that the adult social care workforce, with 1.62 million filled posts, is bigger than the NHS, which has a workforce of 1.37 million.