Heart and home

摘要

What price a good later life? Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's ￡2bn 'boost' to social care funding in 2023-24 pales into insignificance when compared to the annual ￡7bn viewed as necessary in 2020 when Hunt was chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. With local councils calculating the 'Fair Cost' paid to social care providers, care homes - already struggling with staff employment and retention - are running with little or no profit margins. Half of those using their services, meanwhile, don't qualify for government funding and are forced to pay for their care, some having to sell their homes to do it. Morden College helps the elderly facing hardship; the new centre helps enrich that life and enables the college to start opening up its services to more people. Charity AgeUK's latest report, State of Older People's Health and Care, released in July, exposes the scale of the challenge for older people in today's social care system. We are living an average 20 years longer than we did 75 years ago - an encouraging statistic that masks a picture of increasingly complex health needs. By 2030, there will be 2 million older people without children, meaning a greater dependence on a formal care system that is ill-prepared to receive them.