FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Let's All Move To Scotland!

By Nigel Roberts
January 26, 2001

You may have heard the news; the Scottish Parliament is planning to offer free care for the elderly in nursing homes. This is radically different to what is planned by the UK Government for the rest of the country and will have a huge impact in the future, much of which I am sure the Scottish Parliament has not yet considered. In the rest of the UK, free care will be dependent on your financial assets -- means-tested, in other words.

From April the ceiling of people's savings, including their property, will rise from £16,000 to £18,000. If you have assets in excess of this you will be expected to contribute towards the costs of your care. This means that an elderly person with low or no savings, but a house worth £60,000, would have to sell it and use the proceeds to pay for care. In Scotland they will not have to do this.

What does this mean?

There is likely to be a mass exodus of 60-somethings from England, Wales and Northern Ireland to Scotland to take advantage of the free nursing care offered there. We are likely to see house prices in London decimated as all the oldies sell up and move north, while house prices in Scotland will surge, especially for that nice three-bedroomed bungalow with a small garden.

Certain businesses in Scotland can look forward to booming sales: most notably funeral directors can look forward to a doubling, tripling and quadrupling of their sales as more and more of us move north of the border. Sales of Zimmer frames will soar, and supermarkets will have to adapt their stocking strategies to cope with the change in demand.

The pure-bred Scots will demand the introduction of Scottish passports and rationing of the free nursing care to only those who can prove their Scottishness, and we are likely to see taxes in Scotland rise as the cost of nursing care spirals out of control...

Let's be serious. OK, we may well not see a mass exodus from England to Scotland to take advantage of the different rules. But surely one part of the United Kingdom cannot adopt such a radically different stance to the rest of the country without massive strains soon becoming evident?

How do you cope with an ageing population?

The problem is that the UK has an ageing population -- how can the increasing number of older people be cared for in a way that is generally seen as just? The number of people in their 60s, 70s and 80s is set to continue rising. In 1911 only 6.8% of the population was over 65. By the end of 2001 it is forecast that 24.1% of the population will be over 65.

Older people are no longer an insignificant share of the population. Looking ahead into the next century, their numbers can be expected to increase still further. At the moment, there are about a million people over the age of 85. By 2040, there may be 2.5 million

The pressure on resources

The problem with all this is that, since few over the age of 65 remain in the working population, there will be a greater demand for public welfare provision. This pressure on resources is increased still further as medical advances during the past few generations have largely eradicated many causes of death. Most people nowadays die slowly, from illnesses that cannot be cured, but which cost a small fortune to care and manage.  And even if they do not die of an illness, older people frequently lose the ability to look after themselves, and so must be admitted to various kinds of long-term residential care.

The costs may be enormous. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, the percentage of gross national product spent on long term care can be expected to rise from 1.8% now to 5% in 2031. And remember, the UK currently spends about 6% of GNP on the whole National Health Service. Assuming that the bill for long-term care is to be paid mostly -- as at present -- by the taxpayers, we may be facing the prospect of an increasingly heavy tax burden on every new generation of workers. In 1990, there were 3.4 people of working age to every pensioner. By 2031, the ratio may have changed to 2.7 to one. According to even more alarming projections, by the year 2050 75% of the population will have to be supported by the remaining 25%.

Can medical science provide a solution?

It may be that none of these fears actually turn out to be real. Sure, the population will age, but who knows -- the science of the 21st Century may well abolish the physical and mental decline now associated with ageing. It may be that most people now under the age of 40 will be able to remain active and productive well into their 80s or even later.

But this cannot be taken for granted; it is necessary to consider what approach we should take to the problem as it currently appears to us. To ignore this is to put our own futures at risk. It may be that, if we prefer not to think hard about the problems of an ageing population, our children or grandchildren will be forced to solve it themselves.

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