Analysis: Older people must never be seen as a burden, no matter how tough the economic climate

THERE is little doubt that the situation of Scotland’s older citizens has changed for the better since devolution.

Policy for older people is now higher up the agenda than it was at the end of the 1990s and the country’s successive governments have introduced changes that have led the way in the UK, shifting politicy understanding to portraying older people more as active citizens with valuable contributions to make, and less as “problems” to be dealt with and “burdens” to be managed.

Innovations have included free personal care, access to public transport, assistance with central heating and home insulation, and using modern technologies to enable older people to maintain their independence in their own homes.

But now with the substantial reductions in public spending and the cuts we can expect in the coming years, it is difficult to see these having anything other than a negative effect on the delivery of the services Scotland’s older people need and deserve.

As soon as belts have to be tightened, older people become easy targets. Attention focuses on the headline costs of things like free personal and nursing care without consideration of the expenditure we would incur if we didn’t have them.

This flagship policy costs on average £5,500 a year per recipient, whereas if a person was in care settings it would cost at least five times as much.

We have made important advances and the key in the coming, crucial years will be to protect those advances.

Therefore it is vital that the Scottish Government recommit itself to viewing older people as active contributors to society – especially in what promises to be an even more challenging economic climate.

• Lindsay Scott is communication and campaigns manager at Age Scotland