• Age Equality
  
• Health
  
• Long Term Care
  
• Pensions
  
• Transport
  

Age Equality

For more than a decade ARP/O50 has been campaigning for age equality. The Association has initiated and supported several Bills in the House of Commons, for example in November 2001, when Candy Atherton MP introduced a Private Member’s Bill to establish an Age Equality Commission. ARP/O50 originated this idea, and although the Bill fell because the Government refused to back it, there was subsequently another Ten Minute Rule Bill introduced by Paul Burstow MP on the same subject, and other similar initiatives have been supported by the organisation.

The Government must implement age discrimination legislation by 2006 to cover discrimination in the workplace. ARP/O50 is campaigning to widen the scope of this legislation to include the provision of goods and services and other areas of discrimination where older people are denied access on no other grounds except their age. The Association maintains a dossier of cases on a wide spectrum of issues, from the refusal to insure through to denial of treatment in the NHS.

New developments are now taking place with the introduction, in 2007, of a commission for Equality and Human Rights. This will be a single commission, incorporating the existing bodies, and introducing three new ‘strands’, including age. ARP/O50 is campaigning, with others, to ensure that age maintains equal status with the other groups.

Health

In every survey undertaken by ARP/O50 and others, health always comes out as the greatest priority for older people. The Association is well aware of this and does everything possible to keep abreast of developments and link with other organisations in campaigning on health issues.

One of the major achievements of the last decade was the co-operative effort between PARITY, an organisation working for equal treatment for both sexes, and ARP/O50 which resulted in men obtaining free prescriptions at the age of 60. Other campaigns have included a re-instatement of free eye tests and, with the National Osteoporosis Society, the ‘Better Bones for Life’ campaign which resulted in much greater awareness of this debilitating complaint.

ARP/O50 is a member of SPAIN (Social Policy Age Information Network) which comprises more than 30 organisations working across a range of health issues with older people.

In addition to the general monitoring of health provision, the Association is campaigning (along with other members of SPAIN) on a number of other health issues:

1. While welcoming the Government’s National Service Framework for Older People - with its primary intention of eliminating age discrimination in the NHS - there remains a need to apply constant pressure to ensure its implementation. The emphasis upon the needs and dignity of the individual is particularly important.
   
   
2. Community Care and the phenomenon of ‘bed blocking’ demand urgent attention. Resources steered towards local authorities remain inadequate and much lower than levels in the NHS. The additional decision to reward hospitals for discharging elderly patients and penalise local authorities when they are unable to provide community- or residential-based care is, in our view, an unhelpful development.
   
   
3. Much confusion still remains over the issue of free medical and personal care for those needing ‘long term care’. Both the Royal Commission and the Rowntree Report recommend that each element should be provided free of charge. In Scotland this has, to a limited degree, been implemented: in England and Wales whilst a subsidy is paid for medical care, nothing is allocated for personal care. As the line of demarcation between the two is frequently impossible to define, pressure must continue to be applied for a change in Government policy.
   
   
4. A great deal of anecdotal (and research) evidence indicates that age is still a factor in many places when treatment decisions are made. In spite of Government denials, it can be demonstrated that a ‘postcode lottery’ still exists. At the most basic level, Citizens’ Advice Bureau research in 2001 revealed that time spent waiting in Accident and Emergency departments is one third longer for people over age 60. The principle of ‘free and available at point of need’ must be maintained for all age groups, including older people.
   
   

Long Term Care

The way in which older people who have become dependent are cared for, either in the home or a residential setting, has become an increasingly controversial issue in recent years.

At the present time about one-in-five people over the age of 80 will enter residential care and many more will be cared for — frequently by relatives who are not much younger themselves — in their own homes. The way in which costs are met has been a particular bone of contention, and the controversy around the sale of the family home refuses to go away.

ARP/O50 has been at the centre of these debates, frequently writing to Ministers and prompting questions in Parliament. Most people have their fees paid by the local authority, either after funds (including the sale of property) have been exhausted or because their assets do not exceed £12,000, at which point they begin to make a contribution, paying the full amount if assets exceed £19,500. The amount which the Government pays toward medical and personal care costs varies in different parts of the UK so that there is now some confusion, with England currently getting the least help.

On any reckoning, and in spite of Government promises to rectify the situation, there now appears to be more of a muddle than ever before. Private residential and nursing homes, which boomed in the Thatcher years, are now struggling to stay open because local authority fees do not cover their costs. Fifteen thousand beds have been lost in recent years. Insurance companies continue to sell ‘long term care’ insurance which remains largely unregulated.

In company with other age organisations, ARP/O50 will continue to highlight these anomalies and campaign for a realistic and equitable approach to long term care.

The establishment of a Care Standards Commission has been generally welcomed but the Government has been forced to put back the introduction of several of the requirements which the Commission had intended to enforce: the building standards component, for instance, has been delayed for seven years. There is also great concern that unlike staff working with children, those working with older people are not always required to undergo a criminal record check.

The Government has introduced an ‘interim care’ concept, which means that more and more of the old type of convalescent homes are likely to re-appear. Such a development has been advocated by the Association and others for some years; if such arrangements eventually result in more people being cared for in their own homes, then this will alleviate many of the current problems.

The Government is widening the use of Direct Payment, whereby clients can opt to receive payment to pay carers of their own choice. The uncertainties associated with this — including the entry into the market of unscrupulous ‘care’ providers — leads ARP/O50 to urge caution.

Pensions

ARP/O50 was the first organisation to introduce the idea of a ‘flexible decade of retirement’ with the concept that a reduced pension might become available for men and women from age 60, to be taken in full from 65 to 70. The Association has consistently called for the re-instatement of the earnings link and pointed out the dangers associated with the present system, where the State pension is linked to the RPI and the supplementary benefit — the ‘Pension Credit’ — is linked to earnings. This can only mean that within a few years the State pension will be means tested. ARP/O50 is working closely with other organisations, particularly the National Pensioners Convention, to campaign against this trend.

Other pension issues include:

1. The apparent weakness of the Stakeholder Pension Scheme which is aimed at those with income between £10,000 and £20,000. Those earning at these levels find it difficult to save and the risk attached to market investment also acts as a deterrent.
   
   
2. The doubtful benefits of the State Second Pension which has replaced SERPS (State Earnings Related Pensions) which, being linked to the RPI is likely (in the long term) to pay less than the newly named Pension Credit, which although means-tested, is linked to earnings.
   
   
3. The precarious state of occupational pensions with the demise of many ‘final salary’ (defined benefit) schemes and their replacement by personal plans (defined contribution) which, again, depend upon the Stock Market and annuity interest rates on retirement. The responsibility for both payment and outcome is removed from the employer and placed upon the individual employee.
   
   
4. The Government has commissioned a number of reports on pensions, and both Pickering and Sandler have recently reported their findings. The former has suggested that the cost problem would be solved by eliminating from occupational and private pensions both the link with inflation and survivor benefits. Sandler recommends simpler and more attractive products and both appear to be aimed at assisting the Government and industry rather than the individual. Most recently, the first part of a report being produced by Adair Turner hints at a longer working life and possible compulsory saving. The second part, to be published in the Autumn, will make substantive recommendations.
   
   
5. The Pensions Reform Group, headed by Frank Field MP, has made recommendations which are supported by the Lib Dems and parts of the pensions industry itself. The proposal is for a compulsory pension, adding two percent to NHI contributions and eventually paying 25 percent of average salary. This, again, would have a number of limitations linked to contribution record and has not been accepted by the Government.
   
   

Two other issues are currently being debated which will affect the long-term pensions issue. First is compulsion: there is already an element of this in NHI payments and the argument is for an expansion of this power. The second issue is the retirement age, both for the State pension and employment retirement age. ARP/O50 welcomes the Government proposal to ban compulsory retirement ages but opposes the introduction of a ‘default’ age of 65.

Overall, the situation regarding pensions in Britain is becoming increasingly complicated. Since October 2003, when the Pension Credit began, no less than 52 percent of those beyond their retirement age are means-tested. Alongside this is the Government’s intention to equalise — between 2010 and 2020 — the State pension age to 65 for both men and women and pressure is coming from some quarters to raise pension age to 70.

Transport

The Transport Act 2000 was a major step forward in the provision of subsidised travel for older people. Linked with a European ruling that concessions must be made for both men and women at the age of 60 — to be implemented from April 2003 — there has been, on the surface, an unprecedented improvement throughout the country.

Unfortunately, nothing is as simple as it seems. And although all local authorities must now provide 50 percent of the cost of bus travel for older people (shortly to rise to 100 percent), there has been a wide variation across the country in the way in which the legislation has been interpreted. In some places concessions already being given have been modified or curtailed to fit the new requirements, so that older people are worse off. Cross-boundary problems have been exacerbated or introduced where they did not exist before. At least one authority, which included local rail provision in its concession, has withdrawn it.

The campaign now must be for a national travel pass, which crosses boundaries and enables travel on both buses and railways. The London Freedom Pass, which gives free travel on buses, Underground and national rail in the London area, is an example that must be followed everywhere.

ARP/O50 carried out a national survey of concessionary schemes three years ago, and in our report ‘Who Goes Free?’, presented the Government with incontrovertible evidence that the system as it then operated was grossly unfair to a large part of the population. Subsequently we have supported the National Pensioners Convention with its campaign on this important subject, and their recently published booklet ‘Ticket to Ride’ is an invaluable source of information for all those who wish to bring about change.

With the introduction of age equality in the granting of bus passes, the traditional link of concessions to the State pension age (60 for women, 65 for men) has come to an end. Although any age can be chosen for the granting of a concession, whether it is 60 or 65 for example, the provider must not restrict its provision on grounds of age; with the transport concession men and women of 60 and over are now officially equal — at least as far as concessions are concerned.