Blaise Tapp: Shame on a nation which does not care for its elderly

In a country which seems to endure its fair share of national scandals, there’s one outrage that arguably stands head and shoulders above the rest - the shameful way we treat our elderly.

A new report from the charity Age UK reveals 28,890 older people died in 2020-21 without receiving the care and support they were waiting for — which is roughly 80 every day or more than 500 a week.

Approximately three in 10 of those in England who have requested a social care assessment wait at least six months.

These are shocking statistics, something that should really be provoking much more of national debate than it has. These aren’t just numbers, they are people’s parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts or neighbours - all of whom have fallen victim to the appalling state of social care in this country.

This crisis should concern all of us - even those who are in the first flush of youth and whose only thoughts for the future relate to what they will be wearing for the next big night out at the weekend.

But everybody should care about this because if a country can’t adequately look after the very people who have put a lifetime’s shift in, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

This is a subject I first took an interest in aged 16, when I got my first job, in a care home - thanks to my long suffering mother who, sick of me making the house look messy, rang the matron and convinced her to take me on.

It’s a job I have the fondest of memories of but I have often wondered whether it was entirely appropriate for the teenage me to have been responsible for the personal care of people’s beloved relatives.

The answer is probably no, although at least they had care as we are currently short of more than 150,000 care workers in the UK - a situation which has been been described as perilous.

Caring is an essential act, one that should be properly rewarded and if it was, more people would want to do it as it really is a worthwhile role.

The sooner that we really start looking after our elderly, the better.