Right To Care Campaign Launch Boosted By MORI Poll Support

The Right to Care campaign, launched today (6 November) by a broad-based grouping of 20 influential national organisations, received a massive boost from a MORI poll which found that 75% of the public broadly supported the aims of the campaign.

Right to Care is campaigning for all nursing and personal care to be free at the point of use for all who need it as recommended by the Royal Commission on Long Term Care, chaired by Lord Sutherland. The Right to Care Charter, signed today by representatives of all 20 organisations, by patrons Claire Rayner, Robin Wendt and Lord Sutherland, and by MPs David Hinchliffe and Paul Burstow, states that:

• The recommendations of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care should be implemented in full
• It is unacceptable to charge older or disabled people for essential personal care - means testing of personal care should be ended
• The artificial distinction between "nursing" and "personal" care should be removed
• Good quality personal and nursing care should be provided on the basis of need, free at the point of use in all settings.

The MORI poll, commissioned by UNISON, found that 75% of adults aged 15+ believed that the Government should provide free personal care for all elderly people who need it. And 84% said that the Government should introduce free personal care for the rest of the UK (following Scottish Parliament deciding that Scottish pensioners receive free care from April 2002). That figure dropped only to 81% amongst people who were told the cost of that move. And 85% of those polled did not have an elderly relative or friend currently living in a nursing or residential home.

In no age group is support for free personal care in the rest of the UK less than 79%.

Speaking at the launch of Right to Care, Claire Rayner said:

"The way elderly and disabled people are treated is a measure of a civilised society. We will all grow old eventually. We all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We all have a Right to Care and we are Right to Care."

Keith Sonnet, UNISON Deputy General Secretary, said:

"We believe it is unacceptable to charge older or disabled people for essential personal care, such as help with going to the toilet. And we want to see an end to the dreaded means testing which is degrading and humiliating. It penalises older people with savings or assets such as the home they own and younger disabled people with an income."

Beverley Malone, RCN General Secretary, said:

"Nurses see the unfairness of the current system every day, with frail and vulnerable people in care homes having to pay for care that they would get free in hospitals. We are sure that nurses across the country will support this campaign, to achieve a fairer deal for older and disabled people."

Rodney Bickerstaffe, President of the National Pensioners Convention said:

"The current care system is creaking at the joints and today we will send a clear message to Health Secretary Alan Milburn and the cabinet, that older people should not be treated like second-class citizens. This is the generation that built the NHS and the welfare state and they should be given the care they deserve."

Harry Cayton, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, said:

"Three-quarters of people in long term care have dementia. It is fundamentally unfair that the Government's definition of 'free nursing care' excludes most of the personal care which people with dementia need and which arises directly from their illness."

Gordon Lishman, Director-General Age Concern (England), said:

"It is clear from this latest poll, as well as the countless calls we receive from older people and their relatives, that the public is very dissatisfied by the current unfair and nonsensical system of paying for care. Charges for personal care are an additional tax falling on older and disabled people who need such care."

The Government has divided care into "nursing" which is free on the NHS and "personal" which must be paid for by the individual on a means-tested basis. The Government's definition of nursing care applies only to care provided by a registered nurse, when the reality is that most nursing care is provided by non-registered nurses. Even then, it is limited to 16335, 16370 or 163110 a week depending on the level of assessed need.

Anyone with over 16318,500 is expected to pay the full cost of their residential or nursing home care. Those with over 16311,500 pay from their income (such as pensions and benefits) and in part from their capital based on assumed (tariff) income. Those with less than 16311,500 contribute towards their care from their income.

Different funding arrangements are emerging across the UK. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, personal care will continue to be subject to means testing. However, the Scottish Executive has announced that from April 2002, flat-rate payments of 16390 a week for personal care and an additional 16365 a week for those needing nursing care will be available for self funders in care homes. From the same date, all charges for personal care in the community are to be removed. Right to Care believes that the Government must fully fund personal and nursing care that is free at the point of use throughout the UK.

Right to Care Campaign group: ACO/VOICES, Action on Elder Abuse, Age Concern England, Age Concern Scotland, Alzheimer's Society, Arthritis Care, Carers UK, Coalition on Charging, Counsel and Care, Help the Aged, Leonard Cheshire, MENCAP, National Pensioners' Convention, NHS Support Federation, Patients' Association, Radar, Relatives and Residents Association, RCN, UNISON.

Technical details

MORI interviewed 2,013 British adults aged 15+. Interviews were conducted face-to-face, in respondents' homes, in 193 sampling points across Great Britain, during 20 - 25 September 2001. Data are weighted to the known population profile.

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