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that we will all have to work longer, and possibly differently, in order to afford our pensions and our end of life care. It also involves the recognition that most of us are at the peak of our powers in our forties and fifties and that it is perfectly sensible–indeed, the Americans already do it–for us to switch to different, less demanding, jobs when we reach our late sixties and seventies. Retirement and activity in older age needs rethinking, and government cannot rely on older people’s goodwill for much longer.

      Very old people need to be assured that they will have proper care, properly funded, when they need it–even if they have to bear some of the cost themselves. They need to be reassured about what their liabilities might be. This means accepting that we will need to pool the risk for some of their care, and old people need to know that society accepts their care as an obligation, and also that they will not be abused in care homes, or indeed in their own homes.

      Care workers need to be treated with greater respect, receive more and better training, and to be paid more. It should be deemed just as honourable to be a care worker looking after older people as it is to be a doctor or nurse looking after children–and there may need to be new financial and status rewards to ensure this.

      Older people need to know that they can control their own death when the time comes, and to be able to die at home, with all the information and support they require, if that is what they want. They need to know that they can make advance directives so that, if they are not able to make decisions themselves at the time, their wishes will still be carried out.

      Older people need to know that there will be no discrimination against them in the provision of healthcare, that they will get what others get, subject to whether it seems sensible to them and their clinicians, and that they will be consulted every step of the way.

      Finally, older people have a right to expect kindness and care from the rest of us–there are so many older people, and soon we will be amongst them. It should be part of what is expected of every citizen that, whilst he or she is able, they visit and generally look out for older people who are their neighbours.

* ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’ (with thanks to the Brothers Grimm).

* Population Trends (summer 2004), no. 116.

† Department of Health, Departmental Report, 2004.

* N Salari, ‘Are health and care services ready for a surge in Alzheimer’s

† N. Pettinger, ‘Age-old myths’, HSJ (27 August 1998).

* Simplicity, Security and Choice: Working and saving for retirement, Department of Work and Pensions (December 2002).

* Ben Richardson, BBC News Online (16 June 2004).

† N. Gillies and N. MacErlean, ‘Tell me the old, old story’, The Guardian (23 July 2000).

‡ H. Mulholland. ‘Fifty reasons to be cheerful’, The Guardian (3 April 2000).

* Keizer, B. (1997).

* Age Concern Fact Sheet 10, Local Authority Charging Procedures for Care Homes, issued April 2004, updated June 2004.

* Archbishop Rowan Williams, as quoted by the Independent Catholic News (2 June 2003).

* Kathryn Wilmington, Policy Officer, Community, Health and Social Care (6 June 2003).

† From the website of the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care (10 May 2004).

* Liz Sayce, Director of Policy and Communications, DRC (6 June 2003).

† Beverley Malone, RCN General Secretary.

* Jamie Doward, ‘I don’t want to plan my death…’, The Observer (19 September 2004).

* GMC News (December 1992).

* E. Roberts, J. Robinson, and L. Seymour, Old Habits Die Hard–Tackling Age Discrimination in Health and Social Care (King’s Fund, 2002).

* Seshamani, M. and Gray, A. (2004).

* Williams, A. (1997).

* Grimley Evans, J. (1997).

* Chris Price, ‘Who Pays for Grandma?’ The Stakeholder (1999); the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care (1999).

* Liz Phillips, ‘Does nobody care?’, Daily Mail (7 July 2004).

* Gary Younge, ‘Grey power bites back’, The Guardian (5 June 2000).

† ‘The battle for the older voter’, The Economist (18 September 2004), 37.

* Peter Riddell, ‘Getting the Grey Vote’, Parliamentary Monitor (November 2004).

† Responding to Elder Abuse (Community and District Nursing Association, 2004).

‡ Liz Gill, ‘Abuse is a wicked secret’, The Times (1 January 2004).

* ‘Who Cares for Granny?’, Channel Five, a MacIntyre UK Undercover documentary (October 2003).

* Jenkins, G., Asif, Z., Bennett, G. (2000).

† Action on Elder Abuse press cuttings, April 2002–March 2003.

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