Birth rate fall in UK

[Little John]

Illnesses that require hospitalisation. Being old may require extensive personal care (in the same way a small child requires extensive care because they are unable to feed, wash etc) but not necessarily health care. Obviously, there is a significant grey area between the two and this is where disputes between families of the elderly and various state agencies, including the NHS, may occasionally occur. Generally speaking, there is a resistance by the NHS to take on the long term care of an individual unless it can be clearly demonstrated that their needs are unambiguously healthcare related.

[vtsnowedin]

Then you are just as knackered as US citizens are as they can usually stabilize you well enough to ship you off to the home and off their books.
Who owns these "Care Homes" They own every house in England and are just letting you fix it up and maintain it until you fall into their clutches and have to turn it over to them.

[RenewableCandy]

They're going to carry on cleaning up until everyone realises what a rip-off they are. Except, given that their premises are generally owned by banks, and their extortionate fees go to pay for premises rather than decent wages for the care-workers, it's actually the banks that clean up. A chain of old folks' homes (Southern Cross) went bust a few years back for precisely that reason.

[ceti331]

I know the demographic/societal arguments against low TFR.. but I see them both as symptoms of another problem: ponzi economics.

Printing money to inflate asset prices, and making spending plans that require more future taxpayers are both ponzi schemes.. (just branded for right-wing and left-wing people respectively) . They both need a rising population to make sense.. which requires increasing energy supply..

But both are nonsensical because adding more people just stretches resources thinner and depletes them faster. I think what people need to look after them in old age , primarily , is fuel.. (driving the machines & production). if we had stable economics you'd have been able to see how much real value you were 'saving for retirement' which would be real capital i.e. land ,fuel,machines..

I don't have a hard stat but strongly suspect a lot of the labour in this world is phoney already.. mostly competing for access to what machines make, rather than actually producing something. Thats not a criticism of people's choices in careers, they're just doing what they have to do to survive in this world. with an increasing amount of the 'real work' done by machines they had no choice.

r.e. china I see that as damage done by their population boom , not by the action they took to stop it getting worse. The 1CP doesn't say "kill girls", thats just the result of stubborn traditions about the role of men & women not adapting to their reality

[PS_RalphW]

Then you are just as knackered as US citizens are as they can usually stabilize you well enough to ship you off to the home and off their books.
Who owns these "Care Homes" They own every house in England and are just letting you fix it up and maintain it until you fall into their clutches and have to turn it over to them.

In practice it forces you sell the family home and put the money in the bank. That releases the house onto the market instead of sitting empty, which is a good thing in the UK market. My mother in law did the decent thing by dropping dead and leaving us the house as a nice nest egg, my mum is made of tougher stuff.

[Little John]

My mam is now in a place that is one step along the line from sheltered housing and one step away from a residential home. It's basically a self-contained apartment in a big building of such apartments. The centre of the building is open-plan and contains a communal area where folks can go to eat together, which most choose to do. Or, folks can cook their own meals in their own flat and basically continue to live an independent life. The place is staffed with carers and a cook who also doubles up as handyman. So, my mam has a carer on call at any time of the day.

The above flat is on the site of the old flour mill in my Mam's village in north Yorkshire. Prior to that she had lived for 20 years in a pensioner's bungalow elsewhere in the village. This had an intercom system that linked her up to the wardens who, although based 17 miles way in the nearest town, could be there in twenty minutes if she needed them. The reason for the move is that she had become partially blind due to macular degeneration, crippled from osteoporosis and a bit crap on the memory front due to the onset of multi infarct dementia.

Materially, she is very lucky. Emotionally, she is utterly miserable. She'd much rather be living with one of us, her kids. And we would rather that as well. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons none of us can either afford, or are physically able to have her at home. My sister is in a wheel chair and so lacks the physical capacities and my brother and I are both too poor to be able to afford to not work.

In the meantime, my Mam materially benefits from the following state funding, either directly or directly;

850 pcm - rent charges
700 pcm - home help charges
800 pcm - pension and disability allowance
400 pcm - mobility allowance

Total - 2750 pcm

I could have my Mam live at home with us and employ a carer full time for 40 hours per week for half to two thirds of that money. Or, my wife or I could stop afford to stop working and do the same for the money. But, the state has designated that the money must only go to a private commercial provider who doesn't really give a shit about my Mam and who, after paying for the wages of the carers and paying for the overheads of the buildings etc, must then extract a profit.

It's all just a bit insane.

[vtsnowedin]

Then you are just as knackered as US citizens are as they can usually stabilize you well enough to ship you off to the home and off their books.
Who owns these "Care Homes" They own every house in England and are just letting you fix it up and maintain it until you fall into their clutches and have to turn it over to them.

In practice it forces you sell the family home and put the money in the bank. That releases the house onto the market instead of sitting empty, which is a good thing in the UK market. My mother in law did the decent thing by dropping dead and leaving us the house as a nice nest egg, my mum is made of tougher stuff.

Yes you have to liquidate it and turn over the cash to them. They can't be inconvenienced by having to put it up for sale themselves.
Just one of the ways the rich get richer. A lifetimes work and progress can be eaten away by just a few months stay in a home for one spouse or the other.

[PS_RalphW]

Most of the funding that Steve's mum gets is only available to people without assets - ie living in rental property and minimal money in the bank. I think my mum gets a basic state pension and some level of care allowance, and the residue of my dad's work pension.

She is also more or less wheelchair bound, suffers macular degeneration and increasing memory problems which is almost certainly dementia.

Both my brother and I have spouses with health problems, but mum is past living in any family home, she needs more care than we could provide .

[vtsnowedin]

Both of my parents spent time in nursing homes as we call them here at the end of their lives. Not something I'm looking forward too. We have to have them of course , my issue is with the fees charged and who ends up with the profits and often how poorly the care is provided.

[kenneal - lagger]

Ralph, once your Mum gets to the stage where she needs nursing care rather than just care she can re reassessed and the state then pays all the fees. All she has/you have to provide is pocket money for her. We had this with my wife's step mother. We went from paying about £3k per month to £30 or less, not even having to pay for her food.

It seems ridiculous that you go from getting nothing to getting everything but that is the way the state works. We would have been quite happy to have paid for her food at least but we weren't required to.