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Elderly 'could share homes with jobseekers'
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-19 13:05
House sharing between pensioners and young single jobseekers in London and
the South-east will be encouraged by the British government as part of a radical
Department of Health shake-up of social care.
Pensioners in large houses, who are often lonely, will be invited to offer a
spare room to younger people in return for routine help around the house,
including doing the shopping.
The plans will be part of a Green Paper this autumn to tackle the breakdown
of traditional support by families for elderly relatives which the Government
estimates is worth ￡50bn a year. Ministers believe it will help tackle the
increasing problem of "adult abuse".
Stephen Ladyman, the Health minister in charge of social care, said the
voluntary house-sharing scheme could be put on a national footing, with possible
state funding.
Mr Ladyman said: "In return for subsidised rent, young, single jobseekers in
London and the South-east could be invited to live with an older person, do a
bit of shopping and agree to spend a bit of time during the week, chatting to
them, involving them in their lives.
"You do something about the housing problem and the fact that young people
need a bit of help to get their first job; and you have got somebody bringing a
little bit of quality into an older person's life."
Ministers are aware that many pensioners value their independence, and will
not want to share their homes. But Mr Ladyman has told officials to "think
outside the box" for a Green Paper to be published in the autumn on improving
social care for the elderly.
Home-share schemes are already being organised by some voluntary groups.
"Maybe we need to do more to help the voluntary sector to organise it, more to
advertise it, maybe there are things we could do - maybe subsidise the
administration of it or use grants to get home share started," he said.
Other ideas he is pursuing for the consultation document include creating a
carers' website, like the eBay auction, where those who can provide help to the
elderly can post what they can offer on the internet and the elderly can pick
and choose.
Care swapping is also likely to find its way into the Green Paper. This would
provide voluntary back-up on behalf of family members, who cannot regularly
visit their own relatives in need of care, in return for a few hours a week of
voluntary help in their own area.
Mr Ladyman told carers in a survey for the Green Paper that while people find
it completely unacceptable to treat children badly, society allowed it to happen
to adults. "There is a feeling that adults can look after themselves. For most
adults that is true but a lot of adults in the care system cannot look after
themselves.
It is one of the reasons we have been much slower to deal with adult abuse
than we have with children's abuse," he said. "In the old days all the family
would have been in the same location. We would have seen ourselves having
responsibilities towards each other which we no longer see ourselves as having.
We all fly the nest without a second's thought about what will happen when the
family gets old."
One of the most controversial changes will be a proposal for the elderly to
receive direct payments or be given their own budgets for care. Mr Ladyman said
they could also benefit from independent assessors, rather than having their
cases assessed by NHS or council assessors, who could feel constrained by
financial limits.
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