Over the last few months, I’ve worked with the Centre for the Modern Family, a relatively new but influential think-tank, and its expert panel, authoring a report on the state of care in the UK. It was an interesting but very disturbing report to write. It was very clear that those supporting disabled people, who were already experiencing some cuts to benefits, were struggling to make ends meet. The same was true of those caring for older people.
What was also sobering was that both groups – as well as sandwich carers – felt forgotten by society at large. They felt largely failed by Government (perhaps a little less so by local Government). And they felt that the unspoken contract that we as a nation signed, post-war, to support our vulnerable citizens, at times of need (and we can all be vulnerable at times) was being whittled away in this time of recession.
Read the report, therefore, and weep, for the shades of Bevan, Beveridge and Atlee, who in their own ways created the modern welfare state. As our nation ages, and as our economy worsens, the contract they undertook – to support those in need – seems to be under question, as never before.
You can read the report here:
http://www.centreformodernfamily.com/TheResearch/FamiliesthatCareMay2013.aspx
Katharine Quarmby 