New Report Highlights Need for Elderly Care at Home

Thursday, 24th April 2014

Published 24 April 2014.

The Institute for Public Policy Research has today released a report, ‘The Generation Strain – Collective Solutions to Care in an Aging Society’, which highlights the developing care ‘gap’ in the UK.

Number of Carers vs. Number of Carers Needed

Most care for older people is not in fact delivered by the state or private care companies, but rather family members and friends. This is estimated to be worth £55 billion annually. However, as the population ages there is a developing care ‘gap’ whereby the number of older people requiring care outstrips the number of adult children able to provide it (due to happen for the first time in 2017). There are a number of key drivers behind this:
  • By 2032, 60% more older people in England (an extra 1.1 million) will need care from their families, but the number of people able to care for older parents will have increased by only 20%
  • State-funded care services are being increasingly rationed and families are being left alone to cope
  • More people are living alone, families are living further apart, and fewer older people have children to rely on

As the care ‘gap’ develops already overstretched services are expected to struggle to provide the extra care needed, with two-thirds of all health resources already devoted to older people and social care services facing a funding crisis. Adult children and partners may have to take on even greater caring responsibilities and more people, particularly women, are likely to have to give up work to do so.

In order to address this trend, the Institute for Public Policy Research has presented four major recommendations:

  1. New neighborhood networks to help older people to stay active and healthy, help busy families balance work and care and reduce pressures on the NHS and social care
  2. Care coordinators providing a single local point of contact, to replace the ‘case management’ currently provided by adult social services in every area by 2020, for all but the most complex cases of care
  3. The option of a shared budget to enable those using community care to arrange this collectively
  4. 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

At Carefound Home Care we are very aware of the increasing pressures on families to care for their elderly relatives and the fact that state-funded services are already unable to provide a solution to this. We believe that our market leading, specialist home care and live in care services will become increasingly vital to our local community in North Yorkshire in helping families support their elderly relatives to live the highest quality of life possible.

Carefound Home Care is a provider of specialist home care and dementia care services to elderly people in North Yorkshire, enabling clients to continue to live independently in the comfort of their own home whilst maintaining the highest quality of life achievable. Services provided include basic help in the home, companionship, personal care, medication help, post-operative rehabilitation, respite care and specialist help such as dementia care, Parkinson’s care and palliative care. The flexible service is available from 1 hour to 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, including a specialist live-in care option.

To contact Carefound Home Care in Harrogate call: 01423 774070, for Ripon call: 01765 530000, for Wetherby call: 01937 220200. For additional information please visit: www.carefound.co.uk.

Source: Institute for Public Policy Research.