Work after retirement, says Blunkett

Work after retirement, says Blunkett

Older people should be prepared to work after they reach retirement age for as long as they are physically able to, former cabinet minister David Blunkett said today.

Blunkett said that as the number of older Britons continues to rise, it was wrong to assume that the government should have "prime responsibility" for elderly care.

Delivering charity Counsel and Care's annual Graham Lecture on the future of long-term care for the elderly, the former work and pensions secretary said: "My presumption is this. That all of us, every one of us who is capable of doing so, should aspire to continue with some meaningful activity to the point of our incapacity over taking us."

He added: "Preferably work, of course, increasingly part-time, flexible and in many cases, very different to the work undertaken in our earlier lives."

As well as paid employment, older people should consider volunteering, Blunkett said, and he called for a "merging" of the adult population of working age with those who are older.

"In simple terms, that full or part-time, we should seek work activity for those who can, as part of the social care agenda for the future," he added.

Blunkett disputed the government's admission of a £6bn "black hole" in funding elder care and called for more older people to use equity releas schemes to fund their care.

He said he feared the recent move of splitting social services in two – separating children's and adult.....continued below

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services – "will continue to be a danger that a holistic approach (embracing the needs of family and community) will be secondary to risk management, bureaucratic care plans and crisis intervention".

But he paid tribute to the care services minister, Ivan Lewis, for his "drive, motivation and dedication" for pushing the issue of social care up the political agenda.

"It is essential to continue the debate, to raise the temperature and the level of understanding and to challenge once again the assumption that 'government is responsible'," said Blunkett.

"We all are, and from investment in an expansion of volunteering and community action through to a reassertion of the duty of family, we have to get this right."

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