Ulster Unionist Robbie Butler has accused the Conservative Party of abandoning its previous commitment to help older people protect themselves against spiralling social care costs.
Robbie Butler said:
“The problem of finding a sustainable and fair solution to the funding of adult social care is nothing new. One of the first acts of the 2010 Coalition Government was to appoint a Commission to examine how we pay for care of the elderly. That review, known as the Dilnot Report, found that the system was fundamentally unfair.
“Yet instead of supporting our older people to protect themselves against excessive care costs, these Conservative Party proposals could make it more difficult for families to hold onto their homes.
“The Ulster Unionist Party does not support the proposal for older people to have the cost of their care at home levied on their estate after death. This proposal abandons the Dilnot vision of supporting people to remain in their own home for longer.
“Instead of facilitating older people to remain in their homes, for as long as it is safe and possible to do so, the Conservative Party appears content to see more people move into residential care homes than receive domiciliary care packages for instance.
“Given the fact that Northern Ireland already has the most rapidly aging population in all of the United Kingdom, if this policy was introduced here it would simply exacerbate the pressures already engulfing our residential care system.”