Jackie Doyle-Price urges families to follow ethnic minorities example in caring for relatives

THURROCK MP, Jackie Doyle-Price has urged families to follow the lead of ethnic minority communities when it comes to caring for elderly relatives.

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The care minister was speaking at a Tory Party conference yesterday and criticised the UK for failing to look after it’s growing elderly population reports the Daily Mail.

She said care responsibilities were discharged among ethnic minority populations, a model Britain should follow.

Ms Doyle-Price told the event, which was organised by the Social Market Foundation: ‘As a society we’ve become less good at looking out for our neighbours, not just our families.

‘When I was growing up, people used to be in and out of each other’s back doors, having cups of tea; if anybody was struggling, everybody would muck in and look after them.

‘And that’s gone. We could do a lot better as a society and really look out for each other.

‘You actually find care responsibilities being discharged among ethnic minority populations more than the indigenous population and that’s because they bring with them cultural practices, and we used to have those.’

The MP for Thurrock warned the elderly population are left forgotten and isolated because friends and relatives fail to visit them.

This comes after the Conservative party made a dramatic u-turn on its controversial so-called ‘dementia tax’.

Pledged as part of the party’s manifesto unveiled in May, those who receive state-funded care at home would have been worse off if they had assets of more than £100,000 – such as if they own their home – under the proposals.

Theresa May came under fire over the plans to make people pay for their care if they had assets above £100,000.

But the care minister added: ‘I don’t think it’s fair to expect the next generation of taxpayers to pay for this generation’s long-term needs.

‘It is going to be challenging taking the public with us as we settle these questions because it’s going to be hard and nothing comes for free.

‘Individuals are going to have make provision for themselves, or if they want the state to do it they’re going to have a pay a lot more in tax.’