‘Absolutely heartbreaking’: Family forced to put parents' house up for sale to pay for dad’s care
Carol Jackson tells ITV News UK Editor Paul Brand "it's absolutely heartbreaking" to be packing up their things
The crisis facing the social care sector in the UK has reached breaking point. With costs spiralling, many face having to completely liquidate their assets to cover the up to £100,000 that one in seven people now pay for care.
David Mosley is one of those forced to make difficult decisions to come up with the money spent on staying in a home.
For David, moving into a home has not just meant leaving the familiarity of his own memory-filled house, but also losing it for good.
He is currently spending £3,800 per month to stay in care, and with his wife June’s care having already depleted the family’s savings, they have run out of options.
UK Editor Paul Brand on how Boris Johnson aims to tackle the social care crisis amid a growing Tory backlash
His daughter-in-law Carol Jackson has been forced to put his house on the market so he can afford the costs of the care home.
As she packs the family’s belongings and “10, 20, 30 years [of] memories” into boxes, Jackson tells ITV News that it feels “heartbreaking”.
“Absolutely heartbreaking. They’ve worked all their life for this to just be [gotten] rid of ‘as quickly as possible so we can pay for your care’. Shouldn’t be”.
"That envelope has probably got about 10, 20, 30 years of memories"
On Tuesday, Boris Johnson is expected to set out his plans to fund reforms to the broken social care system by announcing an increase to National Insurance payments, as he promised his government “will not duck the tough decisions”.
Reports have suggested that lifetime contributions on care will be capped at about £80,000 and National Insurance payments will be increased by 1.25% to raise between £10 billion and £11 billion per year.
Under current arrangements, anyone with assets over £23,350 pays for their care in full, but Number 10 said the costs were “catastrophic and often unpredictable”.
And Mr Johnson said: “We must act now to ensure the health and care system has the long term funding it needs to continue fighting Covid and start tackling the backlogs, and end the injustice of catastrophic costs for social care.
Following a statement in Parliament, the PM – along with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid – will give a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.