More people needing social care than family carers available from 2017
24 Apr 2014 10:41 AM
UK social care ‘gap’ of more than a
million without adult children to care by 2030
More people needing social care than family carers
available from 2017
UK
social care ‘gap’ of more than a million without adult children to
care by 2030
The
number of older people in need of care is expected to outstrip the number of
family members able to provide informal care for the first time in 2017,
according to a new report published by the think tank IPPR today (Thursday).
The report shows that the average annual cost for an older person who pays for
a typical package of care has increased to £7,900 a year, an average
£25,000 for home care and an average £36,000 for a nursing
home.
The
new report is the latest in a series from IPPR’s flagship
‘Condition of Britain’ project on social policy. The final report
from the Condition of Britain project will be published in
June.
By
2030, an estimated 230,000 older people in England who need care of more than
twenty hours a week could be left without family to help, according to new
analysis by IPPR. The report says that the number of people aged 65 and over
without children to care for them will almost double before the end of the next
decade and that by 2030, there will be more than 2 million people in England
without a child to care for them if needed.
The
report shows that older people are not simply recipients of care they are also
providing it: intensive care provided by spouses and partners is expected to
increase by 90 per cent over the next fifteen years also. The report says it is
difficult to see how families will be able to provide even higher levels of
care in the medium to long term. The report also shows that the fact that
levels of employment for women with children and those over fifty are lower in
the UK than in many other OECD countries suggests that if anything there is a
problem of a lack of affordable, flexible and good quality formal care, rather
than family members not providing enough to care.
The
report argues that UK should follow Germany, Japan and Australia in finding
alternative ways to fill this gap. The report also points to best practice in
Leeds. The report argues that without enough care from adult children to meet
demand, more older people will instead need help from other family members,
friends and neighbours, or will rely on paid care and the NHS.
The
report argues that the UK needs to plan ahead, learn from other countries and
build:
- New
neighbourhood networks for older people to give and receive support and offer
an extra help to families and carers and reduce pressures on the NHS and social
care.
- House public services for different age groups (such as
childcare and care for the elderly) under one roof, to bring generations
together, as they do in Germany.
- Invest local public health budgets in strengthening
community groups in those local authorities with the weakest record for
community-based care.
- Stronger employment rights for those caring for people
who need more than 20 hours of care a week, to make it easier for family
members to combine work and care.
- Care coordinators providing a ‘single local point
of contact’ to replace the ‘care management’ currently
provided by adult social services in every area by 2020, for all but the most
complex cases of care.
Clare McNeil, IPPR Senior Research Fellow,
said:
“The supply of unpaid care to older people with
support needs by their adult children will not keep pace with future demand.
Thousands of people in their 60s and 70s today could be left to cope on their
own when they need care in the future, with overstretched services unable to
make up the shortfall.
“Britain needs to build new community institutions
capable of sustaining us through the changes ahead and to adapt the social
structures already in place, such as family and care, public services, the
workplace and neighbourhoods.”
The
report highlights innovative changes being made across the world as populations
age:
- The
German federal government is investing in over 500 ‘multi-generational
homes’ which bring together isolated groups like mothers and baby groups,
childcare, youth groups and care for the elderly under one
roof.
- In
Berlin schemes encourage older people with no children or whose families live
far away to become grandparents by ‘adopting’ children raised in
single-parent families.
- In
Japan a ten-year nationwide campaign has begun to train people about the
condition called the ‘The Nationwide Caravan to Train One Million
Dementia Supporters’.
- In
Western Australia, social care is organised around a neighbourhood care
coordinator who acts as a single point of contact for all those with care
needs
- In Leeds, ‘Neighbourhood Networks’ are
community-based voluntary organisations, run by older people, that cover the
whole of the Leeds Metropolitan area and provide activities to reduce social
isolation, as well as everyday care and support.
Notes to Editors
IPPR’s new report - The Generation Strain –
will be available from Thursday from: www.ippr.org
IPPR’s Condition of Britain interim report is
available from: http://bit.ly/IPPR11645
The
final report from the Condition of Britain project will be published in
June.
The
report shows that two thirds of carers over 60 have long term health problems
or a disability themselves.
The
report says that nearly 2 million older people will be experiencing chronic
loneliness by 2033.
The
report says that as more and more men live longer the number of older couples
able to support each other increases. The proportion of women aged 75 and over
who are widowed is projected to fall from 60 per cent in 2008 to 39 per cent in
2033, during the same period the proportion of men aged 75 and over who are
widowed falls from 25 per cent to 18 per cent. Over the next 30 years, the
numbers of cohabiting older people with support needs are projected to rise
faster than the equivalent numbers of single people.
The
report shows that around 800,000 older people who need personal care are not
receiving this, either because eligibility criteria has been cut back (87 per
cent of councils are now providing care only for those with
‘substantial’ or ‘critical’ needs) or because they are
unable to afford paid care.
Contacts
Richard Darlington, 07525 481 602, r.darlington@ippr.org
Sofie Jenkinson, 07981 023 031, s.jenkinson@ippr.org
The generation strain: Collective
solutions to care in an ageing society