Care for elderly in ‘absolute crisis’, charity warns

Age UK says cuts leaving increasing numbers of old people with either no support or very limited help at home

Britain faces an “absolute crisis” in social care for elderly people as a result of cuts to services, the director of the country’s leading charity for older people has warned.

Michelle Mitchell, the director of Age UK, said increasing numbers of older people with considerable care needs were “getting absolutely no support at all, or poor quality and limited support” as a result of cuts to local authority provision.

She cited research by the King’s Fund showing that the number of older people who need significant care support but receive no assistance will reach almost 900,000 in 2012, rising to 1 million by 2015. “This means people will deteriorate more quickly and go into hospital,” she said.

“We have seen the rates of admissions to hospital increase over the last few months which, apart from anything else, is very expensive to have someone admitted through A&E and then kept in hospital.

” Care is in crisis and it is getting worse. We have evidence to show that local authorities have cut care for older people by 4.5% this year, and this at a time when social care is chronically underfunded anyway.”

She cited cases in which older people who were unable to undress themselves were being put to bed at 5pm because it was the only time care workers could fit them in, and left until 10am the next day.

The squeeze on care services comes as older people are being forced to “eke out” an existence on the edge of poverty due to rising fuel and food prices, Mitchell said. Age UK (formerly Help the Aged and Age Concern) says 1.8 million pensioners live beneath the poverty line, 1 million of them in “severe poverty”.

“One of the biggest worries, whether you are in poverty or whether you are managing on a very, very low income, is that the cost of living is increasing very rapidly … This is a story about breadline Britain and the eking out of an existence for millions of pensioners.”

Mary, a 76-year-old pensioner from a small town, told the Guardian she was and concerned angered by cuts to care services. After a stroke eight years ago, she was left part paralysed and uses a wheelchair, so. She needs help throughout the day, totalling about two hours of care.

“I need help getting dressed of a morning, and I have a quarter of an hour at lunchtime to do me a sandwich, half an hour at teatime and a quarter of an hour bedtime,” she said.

She is obliged by her local authority – which she asked not to name, fearing it might affect her provision – to meet most of the £700-800 monthly cost herself, being judged “too well-off” as a result of her husband’s pension, half of which she receives.

This expense, with rising fuel and food costs, means she regularly switches off her central heating because she cannot afford to heat her home, she said.

Asked how she feels about cuts to care services, she said: “I get angry because I feel that the government has no idea what it’s like to live on a normal everyday pension. They are all very wealthy people, they live in cloud cuckoo land.

“It’s as though the government is saying, ‘Well, they’ve done their bit and they’re no longer any use.’ Older people, I mean. It’s a horrible thought, but you do have these thoughts. You’ve paid your dues, you’re now no longer active enough to work, so why bother now courting you. I’m afraid they don’t seem to consider older people at all.”

In a statement, the care services minister Paul Burstow said the government had provided an extra £7.2 billion over four years to local councils to protect services for vulnerable people, and had invested £300,000 in a Local Government Association scheme to support Councils to “improve productivity”.

“The evidence is clear: the most innovative councils are protecting access to elderly care services and getting better outcomes. They are doing it by listening to carers and service users to develop new ways of working.”