When I am old

The ‘warning’ of Jenny Joseph circled through my mind. Experts from across Scotland were gathered to discuss how we can cope with an aging population who no more wish to live in care homes than we can afford to pay for them to do so. The problem is huge and, like the number of older people, it is growing. If we don’t change the way we do things, by the time I’m part of the problem practically every school leaver will be needed to service the care industry!

The workshops centred on how we can shift the balance of care from the state to the individual and their community - how we better support people to stay in their homes as they age. The solutions ranged from:

• the technical – fridges with avatars that suggest healthy recipes using the ingredients they hold and lock the fridge till you do the required exercise.
  
• to the attitudinal – either we’re “young till we die” or we have to expect less from our old age.
• to the procedural – the holy grail of interagency-joined-up-thinking where perhaps we can make enough efficiency savings to make room in the budget for carers to spend 5 minutes each day asking how the object of care happens to be.

So I sat there looking at two potential visions of my later life – one where I wear purple, ride a motorbike and maybe still do a bit of paid consultancy – the other I’m sitting alone with a nagging fridge as my only company and wondering how long I have to go without food before a real person comes to check on me.

We’re planning the system that we will inherit – lets develop a nation that we’ll want to live in as we age.