Category Archives: Older care
‘Target winter fuel benefit to pay for elderly care’
By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News
Social care is in need of reform, many experts say
Winter fuel payments should be means-tested to help pay for care of the elderly, a former minister says.A report by Lib Dem MP Paul Burstow and the Centre Forum think-tank, said targeting the allowance would help pay for a fairer social care system.
The report said it could fund most of the £1.7bn cost of implementing reforms of elderly care in England proposed by the independent Dilnot Commission.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said a funding model was yet to be decided.
The Dilnot Commission, which was set up by the government, recommended that the cap on the amount individuals have to pay towards their social care be set at £35,000 over a lifetime.
The commission argued that such a move would protect people from catastrophic care costs that result in them having to sell their homes.
As things stand, older people in England have to contribute to their care costs if they have savings of more than around £23,000.
It’s never too late to be an advanced achiever
New year means a new you – and the age at which we are changing our lives is going up all the time. Jerome Taylor reports on the ‘advanced achievers’
Sunday 30 December 2012
After the fireworks come the resolutions. The new year is that time in our lives when we think about fresh horizons and greener pastures. But those who might be tempted to state that change is a young person’s game need to think again. With our maturing but increasingly healthy population, age should no longer be the thing that stops us trying out something new.
Take Srikumar Sen, a former boxing correspondent who, at the age of 81, has published his first work of fiction, a novel that has already won a literary award. Buoyed by the success of his debut, he has now at work on his second book.
Dame Joan Bakewell, the previous government’s voice for elder people and a critic of society’s lack of imagination when it comes to the country’s ageing population, says retirement is no longer about finding a hobby to keep you occupied. It is an opportunity to grab a new lease of life. “It’s enormously reinvigorating to find a new interest or activity as you grow older,” she says. “It stops you slowing down and getting stuck in a routine. It keeps people young and it opens up new friendships, gives people skills they perhaps didn’t know they had.” She adds: “Things are much more flexible and they’ve got to get more so. Our country has got to harness the skills of older people. Employers have got to get more flexible, use the skills that are there and keep old people young.”
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