Credits for volunteering could solve problem of caring for the elderly

When asked his age, Heinz Wolff replies without missing a beat, “I’m 82 and three quarters, a bit like Adrian Mole.”

Certainly Wolff, still affectionately remembered as the eccentric boffin from The Great Egg Race, has the enthusiasm and energy of a man half his age. He still works full time, seemed to stop ageing about 20 years ago and if he’s right, he might just have come up with the answer to the thorny problem of how Britain funds the care of its elderly.

“At the moment when you can’t care for yourself, you have to wait for care from others, but it isn’t always available and you have to fit in with schedules set by the local authority,” he says, his unmistakable German accent as pronounced as when he was encouraging amateur inventors to fashion hovercrafts from a few clothes pegs and a bicycle pump. “Harry at Number 74 might understand that he has to wait until someone comes so he can get washed or have a meal, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling helpless, hungry and alone.

“All over the UK people wait for basic comfort, care and support that is often delivered at times that don’t really meet their needs and the situation is only going to get worse. There are simply not enough people to do all the things we need.”

Harry at Number 74, along with a Mr Potts at Number 67 have become familiar figures to those who attend Wolff’s public lectures. He still does one about every 10 days, the appearance fee helping to fund his other work as Emeritus Professor at Brunel University, and while the subject matter varies from the finer points of bioengineering to the wonders of space flight, in recent months his talks have increasingly turned to reducing the financial burden of the country’s ageing population.

Peering over his half moon spectacles and talking at such a rate it seems his bow tie might just start spinning, he’s lost none of the persuasive charisma which in the late 1970s turned an odd little science show into cult viewing. Yet he insists, his Care4Care initiative, which has gradually been shaped over the last three years, is not some pie in the sky dream of an ageing octogenarian, but a simple answer to a problem which has left some of Britain’s finest minds perplexed.

With the number of over 65s projected to grow by 50 per cent in the next 10 years and the number of people aged 80 and over projected to double in that same period, pressure on already stretched social care budgets is building and difficult choices will have to be made on which service will attract state funding.

If he gets his way, Wolff’s scheme, a kind of care time bank, will reward individuals for looking after others, allowing them to accrue credits which can be spent on their own care in later life. In essence its virtual bank account, but instead of interest you get a warm glow and as an added bonus it will cost the Government nothing.

“What I want is for Harry at Number 74 to hear the doorbell ring and not to have to look at his clock because he knows Coreen who lives a few streets away always comes at 7.45am,” he says introducing another of the characters who he hopes will bring the Care4Care blueprint to life. “Coreen is in her 40s and she spends an hour with Harry before she goes to work getting him washed and dressed and chatting over breakfast. It these little things which mean Harry can live in familiar surroundings with a sense of independence for longer and as for Val well she has banked another hour of future care for herself.”

For a while Wolff who moved from Berlin to Britain as an 11-year-old on the same day the Second World War broke out suspected Care4Care might remain just a labour of love. However, with the Government on the look out for ways to shave money from even the leanest of budgets, a few months ago the phone in his cluttered office rang.

“I’d become a bit of a missionary, the kind people listen to with interest, but don’t bother too much about,” he says. “Then we had a change of government and suddenly what I was saying seemed to chime with their existing policies.”

Discussions are at an early stage, but with plans by Windsor and Maidenhead Council to expand the idea of its recycling reward scheme to people who volunteer in the social sector, Wolff and his Care4Care initiative looks like it might just ride the crest of a wave.

“I’m an engineer, but when it comes to care for the elderly science has taken us as far as we can go. I have worked on a lot of ventures devising ingenious devices to help people order their home shopping or contact their GP, but the truth is there is no market for them. We have been addressing the wrong clientele, we should be focusing on carers.”

While most time banks in this country have fizzled out due to lack of interest, Japan has pioneered its own care credit scheme. Launched in 1991 as a way of managing the country’s rapidly ageing population, there were a few teething problems, but the model is one which seems to be catching on. In Japan different tasks accrue differing amounts of credits, with helping at anti-social hours earning more than say household chores and shopping. Crucially the credits can be transferred, so someone helping to care for people in one city can give the time credits they earn to say their elderly parents living elsewhere.

“Families are becoming increasingly distributed across large areas,” says Wolff, adding he and his wife recently swapped their five-bed London home for a two-bed property in Marlow to be closer to one of their sons. “People can’t travel 200 miles three times a week to look after their parents, but this scheme would at least allow them to help in another way.”

While Wolff admits he has been welcomed into Coalition’s fold because his idea chimes with David Cameron’s Big Society ideals, he insists the reason Care4Care has a chance of working is precisely because it’s not reliant on individual altruism.

“Yes, it’s part philanthropic, but it also appeals to educated self-interest,” he says. “People want to be looked after when they get older and as it becomes increasingly clear the state won’t be there, then I suspect more people will realise that they have to take responsibility for themselves.”

Heinz compares it to a bit like a pension scheme, one which begins when people are in their 40s.

“Twenty and 30-somethings never think they will get old, I know I’ve been there,” he says. “But the best thing is that it’s so easy to set up. To start it off, I would give everyone over the age of 78 say 5,000 free credits, which would be worth so many hours’ care.

“It’s like the social equivalent of quantitative easing, yet it has the benefit of being inflation and deflation proof. As the next generation starts to earn their credits, as long as the music doesn’t stop, it just goes on and on.”

Wolff is keen for Care4Care to be run as a private enterprise rather than by Government to prevent it being seen as simply another cost-cutting measure and negotiations are apparently underway with a possible provider. If that doesn’t work out, he won’t give up, he’ll simply find someone else to badger.

“It’s something I believe in and something I think other people will be passionate about too. Doing nothing is not an option and this is simple, relatively easy to set up and you never know we just become better people in the process.”

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