Elderly Care

1. Financially Incentivise Family Members to Care for Relatives at Home

Let's find ways to encourage families to care for elderly relatives at home so they don't have to go into care.

Tax incentives, or payments, or additional benefits, and heavy reductions in Council Tax, could be used to help families to look after elderly relatives at home.

It would surely work out cheaper than the extremely expensive costs of care.

Such payments or benefits would reflect the saving which is conferred upon the nation, which would otherwise be spending the money on elderly care.

Dr Donald Macaskill, runs "Scottish Care" which represents the care industry in Scotland. In an interview with the Sunday Herald he explained the costs of keeping someone in a Care Home:

When the state pays it's through the National Care Home contract. It's £881 weekly for residential care. "But our calculation of the true cost is between £1,400-1,600. That's a major gap." As each year passes, the gap "has grown and is at the point of massive instability now".

                Care homes try to make up the shortfall by charging fees to private clients who have to use their own assets to fund their stay. Fees can vary across Scotland from between £1,500-1,900.

                Higher-end care homes with wealthy private clients and facilities like bars charge much larger fees. For comparison, weekly costs in an NHS hospital with no treatment are £3,100.

                Most care homes, therefore, "go for the self-funded private market because that's closer to the truer cost of care." (1)

2. Invest in Ways to Enable the Elderly to be Independent in their own Homes for as Long as Possible

This is a key recommendation of Dr Macaskill, above.

3. Higher Wages in the Care Sector

The First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, claims that the issue in Scotland is a lack of people willing to work in the sector, and not low wages. In a "Keynote Speech" on immigration, he has stated: "We have to fundamentally address the root cause of the issue which is that our working age population is just not big enough to address these challenges". And "what I've said about migration is designed to help that." (2)

That is debateable!

For example, Geoff Butcher, the boss of Blackadder Care Homes, was interviewed by the Daily Telegraph:

Butcher believes that higher pay in his sector would go some way to addressing the problem.

                "If we had better pay, we would probably attract people who are from English, second or third generation backgrounds, who would be more motivated to do this kind of thing. I think it's very largely a motivation issue." (3)

The more people we import to work in the care sector, then the more people are going to need care in the future. Importing people to fill vacancies in this sector is not a sustainable long-term solution. 

References

1. Neil Mackay, "Why the entire Scottish care system for the elderly faces collapse 'in just three months'", Sunday Herald, 6-4-25, at p51.

2. John Swinney, Keynote Speech at the Scottish HQ of JP Morgan Chase, Glasgow, 22-1-25. See video during the questions and answers session, from 31.00, at the STV YouTube page at youtube.com/watch?v=TeCcZ__svUQ

3. Szu Ping Chan "The struggle to get lazy Britons to follow skilled migrants into work", Daily Telegraph, 23-12-24 at tinyurl.com/ms8dmnkf