This week the Tory lead government announced plans to cap the cost of care for the elderly at £75,000. Jeremy Hunt, Conservative Health Secretary announced the cap along with plans to increase the means testing threshold to £123,000 claiming it would benefit 100,000 people.
The fact is, the majority of people who have to go into care homes only live on average for around five years. This means they will never reach the £75k and still have to pay the fees themselves.
This is quite simply a policy to save well off pensioners having to sell their expensive homes to pay for care, protecting the inheritance of their families. It does nothing to improve the standard of care and does little for the people who are actually receiving the care.
Hunt says people will be able to take insurance policies to cover the cost up to the point of the cap but many people currently planning for old age can barely afford to eat and pay their heating bills let alone pay insurance policies just in case they need care later.
The few people who will benefit do not know they will benefit because of the very nature of the care, so are unlikely to take out the insurance.
It is a shame when elderly people are forced to go into care homes because they are no longer able to look after themselves. It is a greater shame when they are forced to sell their children's inheritance to pay for the care. It is a tragedy that we care more about the inheritance than we care about the standard of care, the elderly receive in these homes.
Many elderly people who can still look after themselves face loneliness and poverty. They get little help other than a free TV licence and a bus pass. Often, many of them are afraid to leave their home- worried that they might be attacked or they might fall. Many of them will go days without seeing another human being. In an increasingly digital age, they find them selves isolated and lost, unable to keep up with modern life. They sit in solitude afraid to turn up the heating-instead wearing coats indoors to combat the cold suffering from ill health or fading mental health, too proud to ask for help.
They shouldn't need to ask.
If, God forbid, either of my parents had to go into a care home because they were too ill to look after themselves, my first thought would be that i hope they are cared for in there. Priority would be the well being of the patient. I would not be worrying that my birth right was going to taken away.
I'm not saying all nursing homes are badly run nor am i saying that they all neglect their patients but it has been well documented that many elderly people in care suffer abuse and neglect as cost cutting leads to corner cutting.
Instead of safeguarding the inheritance rights of the wealthy, the government and Mr Hunt need to look at ways to improve the care and ensure a quality of life and dignity is maintained for elderly people of all classes and pay brackets.
Why should the rich be entitled to keep the family home while less well off tax payers pay for the care? Surely in a fair society, those who can afford to pay for their care, even if they have to sell assets, should.
 Like wise, those who cannot afford to pay for their care should still be afforded the same respect and we as a society have a responsibility to provide it.
Schemes like direct payment should be expanded to ensure every single old person is able to access care whether it be at home with help from personal assistants  or in a nursing home.
We are constantly told that we have an ageing population and that we are living longer and longer. Money needs to be ploughed in now to guarantee that those needing care can access care.  Investment is needed in ways to support the elderly at home. Local authority care homes are needed that cater for people who have no assets, and private care homes that charge extortionate rates should be rigorously controlled to ensure they provide a service for all.
In a world where people with disabled partners or children fighting wars to protect our country are punished for having an extra bedroom, it is ludicrously hypocritical to spend money protecting well off families inheritance.





elerly care , inheritance , Jeremy Hunt