Letter: True cost of care

Age Scotland is extremely disappointed that in comments made at the weekend Cosla spokesperson on health and wellbeing Douglas Yates saw fit to admit that his organisation does not have "a clue" how the Scottish Government's policy of free personal care for older people can be funded.

His further comments that vulnerable pensioners will no longer be able to rely on a "nanny state" to provide for their needs and that direct charges for care will need to be introduced to meet the projected funding gap in five year's time seem to indicate a lack of understanding of the issue.

The policy is funded by the taxpayer, and the Scottish Parliament has unanimously supported this continuing. The question we would like Mr Yates to consider is how much would it cost if we didn't have the policy?

Currently, 44,600 people are receiving free personal care in their own homes in Scotland at an average cost of 5,750 per year. By contrast, the average cost of a residential care home place is 23,000 a year.

Free Personal Care accounts for less than 8 per cent of the 4.5 billion spent on the provision of health and social care to people aged 65 and over.

But this 350 million is only 31 per cent of the 1.4bn spent annually on emergency hospital admissions, the biggest single cost in the care of older people in Scotland.

Age Scotland was under the impression that the delivery of services is at the heart of the remit of the local authorities Cosla represents and that as partners in the Scottish Government-led "Reshaping Care for Older People" programme, the body would be interested in saving public money without false economies, and without diminishing social justice or quality of life.

True, free personal care costs money and will continue to do so, but we would encourage Cosla to realise the potential of preventative spending.

Justifying something that we know will be expensive is going to be increasingly difficult … and incredibly important if we are to reap the benefits further down the line.

DAVID MANION

Chief executive

Age Scotland