Balancing the family’s caring side

The point may have been related to political inertia, but there is a serious risk that after the years of work poured into the Supported Living and Ageing Well Strategy, and its escalating importance to island life as the years tick by, that it might well crash on the rocks of no public funding and inappropriate public expectations.

Initially the strategy recognised that there was a need to change how community long-term care in the island was delivered, especially to an ageing population. Yet often the focus is doggedly stuck on how to pay for long-term residential or nursing care and whether that should be funded through someone’s assets and someone else’s inheritance.

Slaws is a much wider debate than that. A 2018 report based on research carried out by the States, available via the Slaws web page, assesses the needs of the community, and takes a much broader focus in a bid not just to promote longer lives but longer active and constructive lives.

A strong focus through the report is on enabling people to live at home for longer, and there are several references to the benefits of inter-generational living. This means different things to different people, but passing reference is made to the support network offered by family members to older relatives. Some said this could be the ‘norm’.

If debate on Slaws is focused primarily on State-provided services and how to pay for them, it will be doing ourselves a disservice.

Far from everyone will be prepared or able to embrace inter-generational living in the family home, which was routine 60 years ago but has dropped out of favour, but it surely must be a factor in these conversations, and in ensuring a future for supported living and better life expectancies, rather than merely dumping almost all responsibility – and cost – on the state.