Extra Funds Pledged For Free Personal Care For The Elderly

SNP Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has pledged extra funding for free personal care for pensioners. The payments, which have remained static at £145 a week since they were introduced in 2002, will now be increased in line with inflation every year.

And Lord Sutherland – the man whose report first recommended free personal care – is to chair an independent review into how the system is working. Ms Sturgeon, who was making an announcement to MSPs this afternoon, was also expected to highlight the issue of the estimated £30 million a year in UK-funded attendance allowance payments lost to Scotland when free personal care was brought in.

The SNP signalled during the election it would press Westminster for the return of the cash. Free personal care for all pensioners who need help with intimate tasks such as washing and dressing was introduced by the Scottish Executive five years ago. But the payments of £145 a week – made direct to councils – have never been increased.

And there have been constant claims that the policy is under-funded. The Scottish Parliament’s health committee found some councils were operating waiting lists for the care even though once elderly people have been assessed as needing such care it becomes a legal entitlement. Councils, including Edinburgh, were also found to have been wrongly charging elderly people for help with preparing meals and now face having to pay back millions of pounds.

An SNP source said Ms Sturgeon’s announcement that the payments will in future be index-linked was designed to ensure local authorities had the proper resources to deliver the policy properly. He said the extra costs could be met from within existing resources.

Lord Sutherland, former principal of Edinburgh University, chaired the 1998 Royal Commission on Long-Term Care which recommended free personal and nursing care throughout the UK. The Labour government at Westminster rejected his proposal as too expensive and the Labour-Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive was set to follow suit until Henry McLeish took over as First Minister and pushed the policy through with all-party support.

Now Lord Sutherland has agreed to lead a review of the financing of free personal care and how the policy is being implemented. He has previously called for ring-fencing of funding and an end to pensioners having to sell their homes to pay for care. It has also been suggested Mr McLeish could make a contribution to the inquiry.

Groups campaigning for the elderly welcomed both the funding increase and the review. Lindsay Scott, spokesman for Help the Aged, said: “This is long overdue because payments have not risen since free personal care came in 2002. We’re all for a review. This has the potential to be a really good policy and as it stands it has not been working to nearly its full potential.”