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THOUSAND PETITION TO END NURSING CARE DISCRIMINATIONThe UNISON-backed It called for the full implementation of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care's recommendations. The commission presented its report in 1999 and made 24 recommendations. The government accepted and implemented many of these but rejected the key one on personal care and insists on means-testing. While great steps have been taken in Scotland and some progress in Wales and Northern Ireland, older people in England who need personal or nursing care face means-testing and bills running into the thousands. More on that news story |
Care for the elderly is free in Scotland – but not in the rest of the UK. Tony Braisby reports on the financial and emotional struggle facing many people
Witholding personal care
Myfanwy Manning, chair of UNISON's 
Right
to Care campaign and a member of the union, has been at the sharp
end of the personal/nursing care debate.
Both her mother and father suffered from heart disease in the early 1990s and a move to a residential care home was accepted as their only option.
But social services decided that neither was ill enough to require nursing care - so they would have to use up their life savings and sell their house to cover the cost of their own care.
"It was a very traumatic time," said Manning, in an interview with the BBC. "It was not just about selling a home, it was about the realisation that even if they got better they would have nowhere to go.
"I think it's absolutely disgraceful the government insists on means testing for what they call 'personal care'.
"We are not talking about wealthy people, we are talking about ordinary people who, when they need support can't get it."
Manning had to find £24,000 a year to keep both in care and her parents had just £14 a week pension to live on.
"I feel very, very bitter and very sorry for all the people who are going to go through what we went through because we have a government that does not value elderly or disabled people."
The Manning’s story is typical of many elderly people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who need care, whether in nursing homes or at home.
Since October 2001, following the report of the royal commission on long-term care of the elderly, so-called nursing care is provided free in England, but supposed personal or social care is means-tested and charged to those deemed able to pay for it.
But the commission had called for both nursing and personal care to be available free at the point of use, and paid for by general taxation.
Since July 2002, that has been the situation in Scotland. But the rest of the UK maintains the distinction between nursing and personal care which one critic labelled “perverse and unworkable in practice”.
UNISON's Right
to Care campaign is pushing for for free long-term care of the elderly,
and is supported by other unions and frontline organisations.
UNISON's general secretary Dave Prentis said:
“One of our major objections to the government’s care policy is the artificial and narrow definition of nursing care, which only covers the time spent by a registered nurse and not the care given by nursing assistants.
“The result of this is that nursing care does not apply to many people with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. This policy affects real people.”
UNISON, he added, has a double stake in the campaign. It is union members – whether nurses, nursing assistants or care assistants – who provide care and they want to be able to provide quality care to those in need.
The Right to Care campaign’s demands are simple:
• the artificial distinction between ‘nursing’ and ‘personal’ care should be ended
• means testing of ‘personal’ should stop – it is unacceptable to charge older or disabled people for essential personal care which would be provided free in a hospital setting
• the recommendations of the royal commission of long term care should be implemented in full
• in particular, this must mean free personal and nursing care available as of need, funded from general taxation, to everyone, wherever in the UK they live.As royal commissioner Robin Wendt told the seminar, this is in line with existing rights to public service in areas such as health, education, roads or the police.
And it is affordable: the commission estimated the cost of providing security in old age by supplying care to those who need it at £1 billion pounds – just 0.1% of national income.
And the public agrees. Not only did free care for the elderly come top of the concerns in a BBC NHS Day phone-in, but a MORI poll showed 84% of the public support free personal care – this figure dipped only 3% to 81% after a cost of £1bn was placed on it.
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The situation in Scotland From July 2002, for people aged 65 and over: • All personal care charges for those cared for in their own homes have been abolished; • Those needing nursing care – at home or in a care home – receive it free of charge; • Those in residential accommodation who pay toward the cost of their care receive a “free personal care” payment of £145 per week; • Those in a nursing home receive a “free
personal and nursing care” payment of £210 a week.
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