Care Home Fees Conundrum

peterbaker

lisyloo wrote: »

... there you hit the nub of the problem which is is that tax payers don’t want to pay for an excellent standard for other people (as with hospitals, gps, Dentists, education). You’ve heard first hand some of the resentment on here.

I am not sure taxpayers generally know what tax they want to pay, at least when it comes to income tax and National Insurance and VAT. They just pay the going rate, generally keep calm and carry on. Unless that is they are incited. Otherwise they simply pay what they are led to pay.

It is new forms of taxation and party political incited umbrage at the cost of certain public services which cause resentment. Well-oiled consistent, and mutually complimentary taxation and welfare systems ought to be something citizens respect, and are proud to contribute to because they can see the good.

What is the point of a system that shouts the message that 10% or more of the working population don't pay income tax? Elsewhere in Europe, students in free full-time higher education receiving maintenance grants too, get taxed on their maintenance grant and on their part-time earnings. Many in UK would say that's daft - why pay them a maintenance grant and then tax it? Well - why? I can think of one reason perhaps. Those youngsters are made to feel full citizens at an early age. They know how their country affords for them to receive free higher education for example. They are very aware of their tax system. They are immediately already in it even before they start full time work on good wages (not low wages even though there is no statutory minimum wage). They aren't groomed to feel they are "lucky", or that they are irrelevant non-payers or that they might be "takers". And when they get old, sure they may have to give up some wealth to pay for social care into their later years, but the systems seem more "joined-up" as someone said earlier. Not all (Germany has problems with elderly care) but certainly some (e.g. parts of Scandinavia) give the impression that the whole thing is still progressive and working.

If you go too far with tax then talented and wealthy people and companies will leave the country so it’s not a simple thing at all to raise taxes.

I disagree. Wealth and talent do not currently go together in our upside down society. Sure, we have ruthless bankers and financial services workers who work in large self-serving teams who will jump ship if their equations don't balance, but they are not talented in any sense that I would wish to see continue to define British accomplishments.

We perhaps need to focus on generating taxable wealth in more diverse ways than money-grabbing financial services and sports entertainment, and then maybe an improved more community-based caring culture might emerge. Other modern economies survive without lauding those sectors and are perhaps more balanced. We used to have much more balance. We could have it again.

We have been inexplicably groomed to be resentful of contributing to community enterprise, yet it is the nature of our communities which truly reflects our success or otherwise as a country. How many of us have turned up and provided our talent or goods voluntarily for a neighbour's barn-building project lately? That hasn't happened for a century or two now perhaps?! We have got out of that particular habit, haven't we?

We can be groomed again to be a bit more caring of others given the right leadership.

If we simply don't care, then using perceived mobility of talent as a valid measure of the health of the country is not much different to measuring the health of Salisbury folk based on either the mobility of GRU officers in and out, or on the desirability of retention of the world class talent in bio-warfare we've been protecting and developing for decades just up the road.

xylophone

Where is the £60k home?

South East - the fact that a lot of people don't have to meet fees of this order does not make it any fairer on those who do, particularly not when they are subsidising LA funded residents.

Sapphire

billy2shots wrote: »

You also mentioned another family member who had dementia that was making choices.

I'm not trying to teach a grandmother to suck eggs and I know you must be perfectly aware already but.....

Dementia can be a very slow process, someone can lead a perfectly happy life for many years with early dementia. Forgetting the odd name, appointment or recent event would hardly require someone to move into a home.

Then there's the middle ground.

Then we get to the end where someone 'forgets' how to swallow, move or function in anyway.

Dementia effects everyone differently and the speed at which some detorates is a mystery. I've cared for people who had dementia for 15 years. I've also cared for someone with dementia who developed it and within a year was bedridden and being peg fed (straight into the stomach).

lisyloo, when asking what people with dementia want (that's what you have been able to do with family members) you must take into account that the person no longer has the mental capacity to make that choice. It's those people that may not be suitable to live within their own homes. Those people that might be eating raw food, those people that walk out the front door in their night clothes and get lost, those people left to sit in soiled clothes for 6 hours waiting for their next visit.

Every care provision is perfect for someone. The issue is when that care is no longer enough yet that's all they are left with.

That's all so true. In the case of the relative in my family who has dementia, we first noticed there was something wrong about eight years ago, when she started accusing the bank of stealing her money, and getting confused about financial affairs (before then she had always been very much on the ball with her monetary affairs, taking copious notes, etc.).

We just about managed to get PoA two years after that. Since then she has progressively deteriorated, to the point where she talks all the time, but makes no sense at all and doesn't understand anything that is said to her. She steals and hides things like razors from other residents in the small care home we finally managed to get her into. Her staying at home was getting progressively more dangerous (I'd say that would be the case even if someone had been living with her full time, because even the most innocent-seeming object can be lethal in those circumstances). She was also going out into the street (sweeping up leaves from the pavement just from one small area, and she got lost once and was bought back by a policeman). Note to earlier poster: this is why the doors to nursing homes are kept locked.

I agree with an earlier poster about the lack of caring in our society. I wouldn't mind paying a bit of extra tax if it was guaranteed that it would help elderly people who are really in dire straits. However, it would all just be turned into a big business, with those at the top making huge profits, while the poor old people suffered.

From observing people at the care home, they are different; but they have a sense of humour, they can laugh and cry, and they feel pain. Many are also of the generation that faced incredible difficulties in their younger years, and who worked hard throughout their lives and never expected taxpayers to fund their way as they were going through their lives (beyond the NHS and perhaps help in the form of benefits for a couple of offspring). They are not things to be forsaken and forgotten, and they are actually ill with a serious disease.

It isn't a very nice society that we live in today. People are being brought up to be incredibly selfish and materialistic; perhaps their attitudes stem from the fact that they don't need to strive particularly to survive, and are constantly encouraged via advertising and big business to indulge themselves. There are also many individuals who are sitting on enormous wealth, which they really do not need, often avoiding paying tax through various means; at least some of this wealth should be diverted to help these poor elderly people. The general attitude that is being encouraged by some towards these helpless people (clear even in some posters on this forum) is also shameful. The elderly always used to be respected and admired (I certainly worshipped my grandparents).

I doubt whether this state of affairs can continue. :cool: