In today’s world the aged are seen as a burden on the working population and the universal services framework. By coincidence, the support structures that formed the central plank of the welfare service that is meant to sustain the vulnerable in society appears inadequate, despite the current and past legislation to address stereotypical about them. In accordance with the NHS and Community Care Act (1990), long stays in hospitals were disestablished in order to accommodate older people in the community; so they could excise their rights in line with any other citizen of the state. In the main, the terms “Normalization and Social Valorization” were invented and mobilized to eradicate discrimination against the aged and the services they receive in their own home in the community or institutional settings. Despite that, the Equality Act (2010) was enacted and implemented to supersede all previous legislation, policies and frameworks that were already in place. The overall aims is to strengthen services for older people however, the widely held perceptions about them have not changed in practice.
The elderly are still more at risk than before when compared with other vulnerable groups such as those suffering from mental health problems, learning disabilities and physical impairments that rely on public services to survive. In some local authorities, the cost of maintaining an older person in his/her own home is benchmarked at four hundred pounds (£400.00) per week; whilst a person with learning disabilities can receive up to one thousand pounds (£1,000.00) per week and a person with physical impairment can receive up to seven hundred and eighty pounds (£780.00) per week. Based on these observations, one would conclude that discrimination against the aged population is endemic in all spheres of the welfare systems.
The question is would the “New Ways of Working” such as personalization of services (Individual budgets, Cash for Care) be different from the previous practices of direct provision, care management approach and generic social work? These service frameworks were embedded in the system to engage with and integrate fully with the service user(s) and their informal carers/families, in anticipation to help them turn their lives around and manage their needs. Actually, social work is about lives changing and that is characterized by nurturing social inclusion, education, advocacy, advice and providing enhanced opportunities to reduce social malice, squalor and deprivations in the wider society. However, these conceptual frameworks on the other hand, encouraged dependency culture that is in some cases proliferate generational cycle of benefits seeking, laziness and unproductiveness in society at large.
The approach may have good intentions to revolutionize health/community wellbeing and organizational structures but, the model is adopted to curtail spending on staffing and services for which the aged and other vulnerable groups depend upon. Most users have seen their care packages reduced and are now unable to cope with their increasing needs. The framework is about changing social services for the aged; from welfare rights to care systems, which I call “Manipulative Power of Delegated Authority”. Unfortunately, a high proportion of the aged service users would not fare well in this socio-political and economic model of the welfare service and would continue to suffer as a result.
Judging from history, politicians of all political persuasions have always seen the aged population as the “Weaker Partner in the Welfare Discourse”. This indicates that any downwards trend in the economy, cuts would commence from that spectrum of the welfare service. The current economic decline and austerity measures have proven the case. These viewpoints tend to drive a high percentage of older people into unbearable economic difficulties, poverty and isolation, which could on the long-run lead to poor health; if services are not provided.
On reflection, government policies have always been geared towards improving the older people services in line with other clients group. Yet, that seems not to the case hence policies are overwhelmed by emergency cost implications due to care breakdowns thus, services are rationed within budgets. This has necessitated reactive management arrangement which only promotes ad-hoc services that has a limited range of support systems articulated to addressing long-term issues concerning the growing older people’s population. The present macro and micro economic situations around the globe has worsened the fragile recognition and respect accorded to the aged and their wellbeing.
The New Ways of Working has in away collaborated by ignoring their plights therefore, compelling a significant majority to take full control of their holistic functional activities of daily living. This is in contrast with their abilities to undertake personalization of services where they can make choices to control to and employ their own assistants. In most cases, the majority of the aged are frail, disabled or may have dementing illnesses that could inhibit their abilities to make decisions concerning their social care needs. However, it is imperative that change must form part of social reengineering in an effort to cater for the growing older people’s population and their increasing social care with limited resources.
Both the contemporary and previous practices have tried to ignore the fact that older people are the architect of the socio-economic wellbeing and occupy centre ground in society where we all thrive. In this reverence, we should be mindful that older people are what I call a "Fragile Economy of Mankind", nature cannot be ignored, and ageing is a process thus, it is imperative to acknowledge that the aged needs continuing care. The growth of the aged population demands a joint effort from all stakeholders such as the local and national governments as well as the family members who supposedly would be at their beck and call to maintain life.
Sadly, family units at this contemporary age are shrinking; the aged cannot willfully rely on their immediate family as a source of help to meet their functional activities of daily living. Inevitably, the aged are at all times more vulnerable than the rest of the population and the question is why this should be the case though ageing is a journey that awaits all; if you have the privilege.
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