Clegg vow on elderly care funding
Updated on 29 April 2008
The treatment of elderly people in England is "a stain on the moral conscience of this country", Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said.
He pledged to provide a Care Guarantee, at a cost of £2 billion a year, to fund the "great majority" of long-term social care needed by older people.
Mr Clegg accused the Government of "burying its head in the sand" about the growing numbers of older people who are turned down for help with social care and forced to rely on their own savings or voluntary care from family and friends.
The increasing financial and emotional burden on informal carers was in part to blame for the abuse and neglect suffered by as many as half a million elderly people, he said.
In a speech in London, Mr Clegg said: "Over the past 10 years, the Labour Government has allowed social care funding to reach crisis point.
"Gordon Brown's moral compass is supposed to guide him towards helping the vulnerable. But the treatment of elderly people is growing steadily worse. And it is a stain on the moral conscience of this country."
Mr Clegg said the last decade had seen a shift "by stealth" from the state to individuals in the burden of funding for care.
A tightening in needs-based criteria had seen numbers of households receiving social care help from their local authority fall from 479,000 to 358,000 between 1997 and 2006, despite a rise in the numbers of pensioners. Three-quarters of those applying for help last year were turned down because they were not deemed to be in enough need.
"The human effect of this is that vulnerable and needy older people who - just a few years ago - would have been given help, are now left to struggle on their own," said Mr Clegg.
Mr Clegg said that the Lib Dems would provide funding to all older people assessed as being in "substantial" or "critical" need to cover the great majority of care they require.
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