Parkinson's UK supporter speaks to Sky News about social care report

8 February 2012

One of our supporters, Valerie Rossiter from Fareham, Hampshire spoke to Sky News this morning about her experiences with social care.

Valerie's interview came in the wake of a report released today by a group of influential MPs.

The House of Commons Health Select Committee report on social care says that older people are being let down by the disjointed care system.

Valerie (pictured right) has cared for her husband John, who has Parkinson's and Parkinson's dementia, for 18 years.

Make costs more bearable

The report urges the Government to accept the recommendations from the Dilnot report and to spend more money on social care to make costs more bearable for people.

It also says that the Government needs to do more for carers and that GPs need to do more to identify carers so they can support them.

But the report also says that we can't struggle on with 3 systems of NHS, social and housing fighting over budgets, while older people fall between the cracks.

Given the ageing population, the only sensible solution is for all three systems to work together in each local area under one budget for older people.

"Worrying about money was the last straw"

For Valerie and so many people affected by Parkinson's the conclusions from this report are not new.

Valerie told Sky News:

"After 10 years of John receiving Continuing Health Care from the NHS it was stopped last year. Now his care comes from social services which is means tested. The NHS seems to have forgotten that with Parkinson's someone's health needs get worse, not better.

"Within a couple of months of that perverse decision being made, I had a physical and emotional breakdown. After 17 years of caring 24 hours a day, the stress of worrying about money was the last straw.

"This is what instigated my husband going into the home. I now find myself topping up from my disappearing savings for his care in the care home.

"The decision to remove John from Continuing Health Care was nothing to do with his care and everything to do with who was going to pay for it.

"There needs to be one pot of money so they stop passing the cost of care about from pillar to post. Then they can focus on the person, not on their bottom line."

Invest in social care now for the future

Anjuli Veall, our social care policy and campaigns manager, comments:

"We are campaigning so that social care is more affordable and the system becomes fairer.

"But there is nothing more powerful than the stories directly from people affected by Parkinson's. Unfortunately, Valerie's experience is not uncommon for people affected by Parkinson's.

"We hope that today's report will bring home to the Government that people with Parkinson's and their carers need support that puts them at the centre, not the institutions involved."

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