Care dilemma we will all have to face eventually | Emma Kay

Being old should be celebrated, but the pathway to a golden age is rife with uncertainty when it comes to social care.Social care staff are paltry paid for a job so demanding, hardly receiving the credit they deserve and with a bare skeleton of a career structure.

In 2019/20 it was estimated there were 112,000 vacancies in the social care sector, worsened by the departure of so many vital EU staff following Brexit. What plan is there to tackle this recurring recruitment crisis? So far, not much at all!When the National Insurance (which pensioners do not pay) increase returns to its current rate in April 2023, the new Health and Social Care levy will start, which working pensioners will have to pay.

Many claim the levy will not make a dent in the reforms required to change the social care system for the better and will simply punish thousands of vulnerable people who have low-paid jobs, like social care workers.

This is an all too familiar trend with the burden of taxes being shifted towards earnings rather than towards the wealthy. It is a pounding that keeps putting pressure on those who do not have the money to start with, while they look on with misty-eyed confusion at those who have more wealth than they could ever dream of, paying little in comparison.

SEE MORE: More than 550 people in Hampshire died while waiting for social care in one year

The elderly with scant savings and only a state pension will have to sell their homes to afford the average weekly cost of £888 to stay in a nursing care home. For a £250k house, that will pay the bill for maybe five years.

Nobody is always in charge of their life and nobody has that golden guarantee. We should be taking a more active interest in the fate of our elderly and improving a cracked and unfair system before it worsens. Can you imagine your life crumbling around you as that security fades? It could happen to anyone .

It is disappointing governments have not found a better package of tax measures to fund such a dilemma which will eventually face us all.

Get your flu jab and move along – don’t queue jump

I had my flu jab this weekend, an important autumnal endeavour.

Many choose to ignore getting it, but it’s more vital than ever this year.

Covid-19 is still very much a thing that weakens our immune systems.

I could not be more pleased with the cheerful and efficient staff at The Oaks surgery in Cowplain rolling out the flu jab. A rude and self-entitled older 'gentleman' pushed to the front of the queue demanding he be seen first. Without mask and no manners. Staff handled his nonsense beautifully, ushering him outside to join the long queue with all the decently patient people, all the while with him complaining how 'pathetic’ it all was. Shame on you.

Summer lost to a marmalade tempest of autumn leaves

One of the saddest things about autumn is losing the summer use of our gardens for sipping our favourite tipple. We sit and watch as they slowly become covered in a marmalade storm of leaves.Leaves everywhere. Sequentially falling in droves. A blanket of leaves is the definitive symbol of autumn.

Sure, it is marked by pumpkin scents and apple-coloured scarfs, hats and boots but crispy crunchy leaves dominate. You walk them everywhere. Into the house. Crushed into the doormat. Like the coming winter, they are rather hard to escape.From neighbouring gardens the hum and thrum of the leaf blowers fill the air as they effortlessly blow the brown shapes into an easy pile.

I listen on enviously as their powerful breath is much mightier than my rake and brush. But perseverance prevails and eventually the autumn blanket vanishes to reveal the green grass again, if only for a short time.

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