15/10/2012 Inside Out West

Hello from Swindon where the number of elderly people is set to double

in the next 25 years. Tonight, a special programme looking at the

growing challenge of caring for our elderly. In Swindon, the council

are preparing to ask the government for help. Also in the programme,

BBC Home Editor Mark Easton takes a look at some imaginative solutions

to elderly care. It's given me my life, my quality of life has risen

like that. We laugh, he makes my -- he makes me roar with laughter. And

sometimes I make you laugh. Yes, when you tell dirty jokes!

their grandparents desperate see their grandchildren following a

family break-up. It is just to me, I am incredibly alone. I don't know

that life is going on but it will never come to an end. It's much,

much worse than that. A genuine bereavement. Im Alastair McKee and

Whether we like it or not, we're all getting older. In fact as a

nation, we now on average older than we've ever been before. Here

in Swindon, the number of elderly people is set to double over the

next to to five years. And with care services already stretched,

things are only going to get harder. The demand pressures for about

social care at the moment are considerable. -- adopt social care.

All the forecasts are that they will be continuing upwards.

there is no perfect solution. All there is is a problem we have to

deal with, which is an economic problem. But it is not a problem

which is going to go away anytime soon. Which means you have got to

wonder how we are going to cope in the future.

It is lunchtime, and Gemma Jarvis from Prestige Nursing and Care is

running late. Despite being on the go since 7am, she has got 20

clients to get round, all with different needs, so it is a

challenge Keith long-time. It is quite tough to get round everybody.

It would be nice to have a chat and a sit-down, maybe a coffee. Hello,

Magritte! How you? Margaret Russell is 90 years old. She has diabetes

and struggles with her mobility following a recent fall. Her visits

from Gemma provide her with a lifeline. First of all in the

morning, I get the morning call to be washed and showered. Then at

dinner-time, I have meals on wheels. At teatime, eyes have somebody come

to do my tea. And then at bedtime, I have someone to come and undress

me. Are you off to see your family on Sunday? Magritte is one of three

a-half 1000 elderly people intending to have their care paid

for by the local authority. -- in Swindon. Elderly care costs the

council �16 million per year, about 12% of its entire budget. It is a

growing vigour, and to find out why, you have to turn back the clock.

This is the head quarter of the council maternity home in Swindon

where there is a boom in babies. the years immediately following

World War II, the whole country experienced an upsurge in the

birthrate. Nowhere was this more acute than in Swindon. After the

Second World War, people were encouraged to have more babies. The

Queen herself had four children. It was really about having a healthy

stock of young people. It was an optimism about the future after the

dark days of the war, it was about having more children around to grow

up and to create a better world for them. At the same time, Swindon's

adult population was been swelled by workers flooding in from around

the country, attracted by the booming industry in this town.

Since then, sank to a advances in health, diet and medicine, most of

these people have gone on to live to a ripe old age. Good news except

now we have to work out how to care for them. Swindon's position is it

has got to the point where the number of older people in the

population are encoring -- are growing, proportionately greater

than the younger population. So they are going to need more help

with the social services and health services. Four Swindon Borough

Council, the challenge of coping with that growing population is

already starting to bite. Obviously, government resources to local

authorities over the last three years have been going in a downward

direction. Twenty-five, 30% reduction. At the same time as the

demand for adult social care has been going skywards. Next year, the

council will face an increase for demand in elderly care services

worth �1 million. Back with Gemma, and she is racing to her next

appointment. Unfortunately, her show jaw allows little trouble time

between clients so she doesn't hang around. -- unfortunately, her

schedule allows little travel time. Hello, Mick, sorry I am eight. Mick

Davis is a 74 years old and has chronic obstructive pulmonary

disease, which means he is firmly attached to an oxygen supply a.

receives for was will top lists from carrots, but he craves quarter

-- McRae he craves company. Aaron the morning and then 315

minutes, and then the rest of the time, I am just stuck and here

looking at the same buildings all the time. It is like being in jail.

Sadly, his loneliness is just one symptom of a care system stretching

to meet demand in the face of dwindling budgets. Last year, an

independent report commissioned by the coalition government described

the current system of care funding as confusing, unfair and

unsustainable. It made a number of recommendations but at present at

the government is yet to of commit to any of them. Meanwhile, in

Swindon they are conducting their own inquiry. I have a draft of some

of the solutions they are looking at and one word springs out over

and over again. Voluntary. It seems that in order to save the amount it

cares -- needs to care for the future, Swindon need to rely on

voluntary work. At the moment the voluntary sector offers a host of

care services that were once provided by local authorities.

Things like befriend income activity clubs and even manicures.

But are they prepared to take on more work in the future? I think

one thing local authorities have to be wary of, but is using volunteers

is not free. They have to be supervised, called mated, so it is

not a free resource. -- it has to be co-ordinated. That sounds

promising but even with a beefed-up voluntary sector, local authorities

will need to find more money. A lot more money. In Swindon, we have

been making tens of millions of pounds of savings over the last

years, and there comes a point where you cannot make savings of

that magnitude. And I think we are nearing that point now. We are as

lean and mean, if you like, as possible, and efficient as possible

to provide the services that are needed. And we need to then say, we

have done our bit, central government need to provide more

resources. So what does the government make of this plea for

extra funds? First of all, we have provided an extra �7.5 billion of

the four years to ensure there is sufficient resources going into

care services. I recognise that things are very tight in local

government, we have this problem that as a government we are

spending over �120 billion more in a year than we are bringing in in

taxes. Along with providing extra resources, it is also really

important that we use the money as effectively as possible. Back with

Gemma, and she is still a long way from the end of her 15.5 hour shift.

Hello? Sir, Now it is the evening round. It involves getting Eda

ready for bed into her pyjamas, and tidying up things are so to tidy

for her tomorrow. Given the efforts of Gemma and care workers like her,

it is clear that care for the elderly is not something we take

lightly. Against the backdrop of a growing elderly population and

squeezed budgets, maintaining that standard in the future will be an

extraordinary challenge. As we have seen, the challenge of

funding elderly care is a thorny issue for local authorities. But

there are a growing number of more imaginative ways that do not rely

on the public purse at all. BBC Home Editor Mark Easton has been on

a tour of England to find out more. I wonder what it is like to be 80.

If I live that long, who is going to be there to care for me when I

cannot manage? And he was going to pay the bill? They are questions we

all ask, because none of us can know how much it is all going to

cost. You can spend almost everything before the state stepped

in. I am here in York because in this city, some of the elderly have

Before you get too decrepit, you can apply to live out your days at

Hartrigg Oaks, a community run by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

where residents know that if or when they need nursing care. It's

available on site at no extra charge. It's not easy to get in,

though. You have to pass a medical. And one of the leasehold bungalows

needs to be vacant. It pays to apply early. I am 53. We made the

decision to come here at 61. It was easy for us. My parents had died

and suddenly we were the oldest people in our family. We came here

and suddenly we were the youngest! So there were people 40 years older

than me. Hartrigg Oaks offers peace of mind to those who can afford it.

Residents pay into a communal pot, something like �170 a month for a

60-year-old, a little bit more if you join later. In return, they can

be confident that whatever happens to them, they won't get clobbered

with care fees they can't afford. You are paying care insurance. You

are paying with small increases covering your care, are however

much indeed. When you meet -- lead a major care, you can dip into it.

All those worries everybody has about what happens, you have

answered. We know where our care will take place, and where we will

die. To me, that is great and we can get on with living. It seems to

me this is a local solution to what many would argue this is the Stig

responsibility. -- state responsibility. But the plain fact

is that at a time of cuts to public services, the politicians right now

simply cannot agree on where they're going to find the money. So

the issue just keeps getting kicked into the long grass. The truth is

that, despite the recession, Britain is still many times richer

in real terms than it was when today's pensioners were born. We

can afford to look after them, but in Westminster, seasoned

politicians will tell you that priorities lie elsewhere. Is it too

ridiculous to imagine the answer to this is to put taxes up so we can

pay to look after our elderly? isn't ridiculous to suggest we

should use the tax system progress of it look after and care for

people in old age. It is ludicrously politically because

nobody will touch it with a barge pole. Why not? People are scared

about arguing about tax-and-spend, they are scared of the consequences

of the economic impact in terms of further depression of our economy.

So with taxpayers apparently unable or unwilling to pay for the

increasing care demands of the elderly, the search is on for ways

to provide help without the need for large amounts of public money.

I've come to Wickford in Essex to see one of the country's hundred of

so homeshares in action, an idea already very popular on the

continent. My husband died in 2002. Gradually, I found I was getting

worse. My daughter did some research. She came up with this

scheme. She rang up one day and said, how would you feel about a

man? Are thought, a man? Why not! The United States pianist? 80-year

old Iona was matched with 45-year old Graham, an NHS worker. What the

next one? It will come to me. the last two years, they've lived

alongside each other here in Iona's home. The deal is that he lives

rent free in return for spending around 10 hours a week helping out.

You see the advert. This is not a flat share with another NHS worker.

This is going to be living with an elderly person. Yes, I take care of

the chickens, do the shopping, mow the lawn, I do a few repairs. Keep

company. It has allowed you to stay here. I desperately wanted to stay

here. I love my House. I intend to be carried out in my coffin from

here. It is not free board and lodging, you have become friends.

Yes. He has been amazing. He has given me my life, my quality of

life has risen, like that. We laugh, he makes me roar with laughter!

Sometimes I make you laugh. Yes, You know, it's so nice when you see

something that clearly works as well as that does. It's not for

everybody. Clearly, the older person needs to have a spare room

and their needs I think can't be too severe. Thirdly, and perhaps

most importantly, the characters have to be right to get that kind

of special relationship. So it is an answer, but it's not the answer.

We need a holistic answer that mobilises and supports families

with caring, that gets the community involved, that gets

younger people active as part of the solution. And over on the Isle

of Wight, there's a unique social experiment being piloted that aims

to do just that. It's called Care4Care and, again, the idea is

simple. For every hour of voluntary care that people put in for their

elderly neighbours... They build up an hour's worth of care credit that

they can keep in a time bank and then use for their own care later

in life. One of the youngest of the 150 or so members who've signed up

for the pilot scheme is 36-year old Lewis, who's been helping out 87-

year-old Pearl. I have been coming to see her about six months now. I

have notched up 20 hours and I would like to think those hours

have been banked I that helping my mother or myself if and when I

needed. I spend quite a lot of time talking to him and he talks to me.

That is a big help to me because... People don't come. Care4Care is the

brainchild of Professor Heinz Woolf, who hopes it will play a key part

in solving the care crisis. I hope that over the next three years, we

will build it into a large scheme. I hope there might be one million

members. The problem is whether the next generation is sufficiently

keen to ensure safety in their own age to invest the hours which will

buy them their care. Here in Westminster, of course, the talk is

all about cuts and austerity, not spending billions more caring for

our elderly. So the responsibility falls on wider society, on

communities, on neighbourhoods, on families, to fill that gap and help

all of us feel more confident about In our final film, we need the

forgotten victims of family break- up. Grand parents to lose touch

with their grandchildren. There is now hope that new shared parenting

legislation will allow grand parents to keep that vital contact

with their grandchildren. We haven't had any contact with our

granddaughter since 2007. Grief. It is continuous, daily grief. There

isn't a single day... Excuse me. People call it living bereavement.

I think that has proven it, really. Sometimes, you don't need words,

and that is one of them. There are over a million

grandchildren across the UK who are denied access to their grandparents.

So this Bristol granny decided to take action. In the early days,

when this first happened, I didn't have any support, so I made it my

mission to try to provide that support, which is what I did. I

have been contacted by over 700 grand parents to date. As well as

running a support group, she's lobbying her MP for a change in

legislation in favour of shared parenting. If this opportunity

slips through your fingers now, we will not get it again for another

decade. When their son was first divorced, Jane and Marc got to

spend time with their granddaughter. When she used to come here, she

would... The summer House would be a place. She would paint and draw

and read. We would take her out, teach her things, and we used to

have a lot of fun. But five years ago, there were warning signs that

things were not as they should be. Five years ago, the relationship

deteriorated and since then Jane and Marc haven't been able to see

their granddaughter Grandparents do not have an automatic legal right

to see their grandchildren following a family breakup. I cried

a lot. You feel as though you should be able to make things right

because you are older and, hopefully, a little wiser. Does

your family falling apart, it is absolutely heartbreaking. And then

the realisation it is out of your control and there isn't anything

you can do about it. Grand parents do not have an automatic legal

right to see their grandchildren following a family break-up. They

must apply through the courts for access. For us, it is not something

I would advise Grand parents to do. That is for a variety of reasons.

It is incredibly emotionally stressful for all concerned. It is

incredibly expensive as well. We have grandparents to have spent

their entire life savings on going to court to try to get contact and

still not getting any contact. The reality of that is also that even

if a contact order is granted, if the resident parent decides not to

turn up at the agreed time and place, you have to go back to court

and you are back to square one. children had the legal right to see

both their parents following divorce, it is hoped this could

help them keep contact with their grand parents as well. At her

support group, there are plenty of grandparents who would like to see

this shared parenting happen. have been getting increasing calls

from grandparents who have either had or have had on warning or

harassment borders issued to them because they have sent birthday

presents or birthday cards to grandchildren. The support groups

connects grandparents from across the country, all with different

stories to tell. Sometimes, following a divorce, the children

decide they don't want to see their non-resident parent. This can end

up with the grandparents also being excluded from their lives. After 10

years, I have a very happy relationship with my grandson. For

the last two years, I have been denied contact with him. At first,

I couldn't think of anything else. I was disturbing my sleep. And I

was crying a lot. I felt so helpless, angry and sad. And I am

missing him terribly. I have seen him because he passes on his way to

school. And on the one occasion when I spoke to him on his way to

school, there was a false accusation of attempted abduction.

That was ridiculous! For grannies in her situation, shared parenting

may not be the answer. I haven't seen my four beautiful

grandchildren for five or six years now. And they happen to live about

10 minutes' walk away, up the hill. Family feuds irrespective of

careers to blame can result in grandparents losing contact with

their grandchildren. It is a horrible on going and this

bereavement. By the time we are grannies, we have usually suffered

normal bereavement, real death bereavement. And there is support,

there are the people that are feeling the same at people in it

with you and eventually one moves away from that. With this, it is

just me. I am incredibly alone in it and I know that life is going on

out there and it will never come to an end. It is much, much worse. It

is much worse than a genuine bereavement. I suppose, there is

always that little hope of that something may change. And you have

to hang on to that. Jane's support group has been a lifeline. At the

beginning of it all, the main feeling is, what on earth have I

done? I must be the most terrible person in the world. And when you

get four or five people feeling like that, we look at one another

and we think, well, she looks fairly normal! And that happens in

the whole group and I think we have been able to lift one another out

of that and be normal old ladies. We eat cake and drink tea! Jane

would like to give the group more than just tea and cake. She wants

to give the news about shared parenting and has arranged to meet

her local MP. That is what I am here to ask Charlotte, whether we

actually are nearing the legislation part of shared

parenting. We have got a second reading on 26th October and we are

pressing for grandparents to be put at the heart of what goes on. There

has been a great move away from saying it is grand parents' rights,

at his father's rights, to the mother's rights, to be looking at

what children's rights are. It is tragic, and the tragedy as we have

got non-resident parents who are ending their lives because they are

not seeing their children. It could take years for the Bill to become

law. In the meantime, the grandparents are getting on with

their lives as best they can. have stopped sending e-mails. I

shan't stop sending birthday cards. Unless there is some change in the

law, I think I have come to the end of my resources that are available.

It amazes me we even think there ought to be a law foreseeing ground

mothers. To me, it seems as though civilisation can break down in one

generation, if this goes on. It is as big as that. That is why I want

people out there to know what to is happening. We are not in the

business of saying we can make this right because we know we cannot.

But we can be there for one another and that has to be what this is all

about. And there is always that hope that that knock-on the door

will come. It might well happen. Fingers crossed. Our Hope has to be

to be able to answer our front door, to see somebody who is now a young

lady on the other side of the door. And not only are we desperate to be

able to hold her in our arms, but her dad is.

That is about it for this week but if you'd like to keep in touch with

what we are up to, you can find us Next week, an exclusive reveals the

level of abuse at the Winterbourne View care home years before