Boris Johnson’s social care lies shame us – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Gillian Anderson, Warren Lane, Eldwick.
Boris Johnson is accused of misleading voters over social care.Boris Johnson is accused of misleading voters over social care.
Boris Johnson is accused of misleading voters over social care.

I HAVE read with interest Christa Ackroyd’s column (The Yorkshire Post, May 15) and can identify with everything she has said.

It is absolutely appalling and unforgivable that people should have to sell their homes to pay for their care in old age. People who’ve worked hard all their lives and never asked for or expected hand-outs.

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My own mother went into residential care in 2011 when she was no longer able to manage to live independently, even with input from health departments and family.

When will social care be reformed?When will social care be reformed?
When will social care be reformed?

She died in 2015. And, in those four and a half years, well in excess of £150,000 was paid for her residential care.

The various benefits she was entitled to had to be fought for tooth and nail with lengthy interviews, form filling, and providing required financial and medical information.

Then, following her death and after all the relevant departments and authorities had been notified of her death to stop her various benefits and, any outstanding debts paid, the Department of Work and Pensions dealt the ultimate insult by sending us a bill for in excess of £50,000, claiming they had overpaid certain benefits or, that she’d been receiving benefits to which she was not entitled.

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After many long and frustrating months of letter writing, telephone calls and emails producing paperwork and bank statements, the DWP admitted it had made a mistake and whilst there was a deficit to repay it amounted to nothing like the figure they were initially claiming.

We were grieving for my mother but, unable to do so properly with this awful situation hanging over us.

Christa’s message will touch the hearts of so many of us as well as remonstrating with a second rate PM and Government who blatantly make amazing ‘sincere’ promises that are then swept away.

Like Christa, I am now the next generation of those who, like my mother, may eventually need to rely on residential care to support me in my old age and it breaks my heart that my home may become another property needed to be sold to pay for that care when, in fact, like everyone else I would rather the proceeds from its sale be passed on to my children.

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield.

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I AM 86 and read most of Christa Ackroyd’s column (The Yorkshire Post, May 15) in tears because she had helped me see how uncaring we must have become to continue to support the present Prime Minister, and the party which allows him to ignore the huge problems within and around social care.

That he gave his word, on winning the election, to deal with the mounting problem makes his stance all the more difficult to accept.

His Trumpmanship is less obvious due to the clouding of months of the pandemic, but many of those who turned to the Conservatives must now be having second thoughts especially after the recent Queen’s Speech.

Coronavirus has been an enormous problem for the Government, leading scientists and medics, but it also helped to highlight the problems and dire consequences for the elderly and their families from the start of the crisis. Yet somehow they have been pushed down the list of priorities yet again. Ostrich-like politics!

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Thank you Christa for putting the facts in that nutshell and thank you, The Yorkshire Post, for printing it.

From: Susan Galloway, York.

I SEE that Julian Sturdy, MP for York Outer, is keeping watch on promises his government has made (The Yorkshire Post, May 15).

I can only assume his middle name is Nelson. He describes the pandemic as a wrecking ball, completely ignoring the devastation Brexit has caused to so many livelihoods.

The £350m per week promised for improved services, especially for the NHS, hasn’t materialised, nor have the 40 new hospitals, nor the 30 million trees by 2025.

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However the worst tragedy is in the area of social care where Boris Johnson promised that 
he had the answer in 2019 – clearly a lie as the cursory mention in the Queen’s Speech has revealed.

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

PLEASE remind Matt Hancock that his job title is supposed to be Health and ‘Social Care’ Secretary.

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