Fenella Clapham has to visit husband Brian in a nursing home two hours away (Image: Fenella Clapham / SWNS)
A DISTRAUGHT wife has exposed the crisis in Britain’s crumbling social care system by explaining how she has been forced to undertake a 260-mile round trip just to see her husband of more than 50 years.
Brian Clapham, 76, is in a care home suffering from dementia but has been placed 130 miles away from the family home in Essex.
His loving wife Fenella has been battling for two years to move him closer so she can see him more regularly but with no avail.
Despairing Fenella, 72, admitted: “It feels like they don’t want him to come back to me.”
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Fenella and Brian, who have seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren, were inseparable for 50 years until he fell ill and was moved to a nursing home in Surrey.
She has been fighting to get Brian, a retired a gas service layer who suffers from vascular dementia, moved closer to his family.
Fenella, who cannot drive and travels by public transport, said: “I’m only able to see him every two and half or three weeks.
“It is killing me. The kids have said, ‘Come on you have to perk up’.
“He gets so upset and he thinks I don’t want him here.
“I broke down the other day. He is so far away, I can’t console him.”
The grandmother has been travelling from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex to St Magnus Hospital in Surrey every few weeks over two years to visit her husband.
The Clapham’s story of failure in the social care system comes as a shock report today (fri) warns that two million older people are not being given the support they need with successive Government’s failing to produce a plan to improve the sector.
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Age UK found “frightening” evidence of widespread struggles among pensioners who should be receiving help to wash and dress.
Fenella, who used to work for mental health services, continued: “I can only go and see him once every three weeks and it’s not enough. We were married within six weeks and we’ve never been apart.
“He should be at a home near his family. Then I could go every day and help care for him.”
Fenella, who has to rely on her daughter and granddaughter to make the two hour trip, has “tried everything” to have her husband moved closer to home.
She added: “We had our 51st anniversary together but we’ve missed three years since.
“My husband is so down – it is unbelievable.
“He asked me this morning: ‘When am I coming home? I think it’ll be when I’m dead’.
“We just want Brian to be bear a home in Essex, so we can visit him more frequently, all he has is myself, the family and the grandchildren – he misses them.”
Essex County Council said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on an individual case but explained it was “restricted by the availability of appropriate provision, as well as whether care homes accept they can meet the individual in question’s needs”.
A spokesman said: “We always work with families and our NHS partners to arrange an appropriate discharge plan for individuals, once the person is deemed medically ready to leave hospital.
“When sourcing an appropriate care setting in the community, we are restricted by the availability of appropriate provision, as well as whether care homes accept they can meet the individual in question’s needs.
“We remain in dialogue with this family and hope to find a solution as soon as possible.
“As always, the safety and wellbeing of all residents in our care is our absolute priority.”
Brian and Fenella Clapham in the early years of their marriage (Image: Fenella Clapham / SWNS)
Age UK research has found “deeply worrying” shortages in social care that it warned puts older people at greater risk of falls and serious injury.
Its analysis of data from the latest official figures showed there are around two million people aged over 65 living with unmet needs for care and support, up from its previous estimate of 1.6 million last year.
Hundreds of thousands of people are unable to complete basic self-care tasks and are getting either no help or help that does not meet their needs.
Around 10% of pensioners have difficulty dressing, and 6% have difficulty getting in and out of bed.
It said while the number of people aged over 75 has grown by almost a fifth since 2017, fewer older people have been receiving long-term care through their local authority over this period.
Lord Foulkes, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Older People, said: “The social care crisis is probably the biggest problem facing the Government and the greatest worry for older people.
“Governments in the UK, Scotland and Wales need to get together, devise and implement a Social Care plan which includes more preventive care, properly funded domestic home care, affordable care homes and guaranteed discharge from hospital to home with a care package or care home.
“This is one of the major challenges facing the Government and I hope Rachel Reeves will address it in the Budget.”
A major review of the health service published this month described the state of social care as “dire” and noted the “profound human cost and economic consequences” of a long under-resourced area of healthcare.
Independent peer Lord Darzi’s report focused on the NHS but said a growing gap between people’s needs and those getting publicly funded social care in England is placing “an increasingly large burden on families and on the NHS”.
Age UK’s research found around 140,000 of older people have difficulty eating, 600,000 have difficulty getting in and out of bed and 440,000 of older people have difficulty going to the toilet.
The charity called on the government to “grasp the nettle of social care reform firmly and quickly” and said the findings in its latest report are “frightening, in that they show how badly our health and care system is currently failing some older people, the oldest old especially, despite the professionalism and commitment of many kind and dedicated staff”.
It said the social care sector is struggling to fill vacancies in almost every adult care role while the number of district nurses reduced by 17.5% between 2014 and 2023.
The report found a “striking” north-south divide in the spread of ill health and disability.
Average female life expectancy is highest in the South West at 83.9 years and lowest in the North East at 81.2 years.
For men, those in the South East live to 80.1 years while in the North East it falls to 77.2 years.
Charity director Caroline Abrahams said: “It’s deeply worrying that the numbers of older people living with some unmet need for social care have now reached two million, out of a total older population in England of about 11 million.”
She added: “The Government has not yet said what it intends to do in terms of reforming and refinancing social care, though it has made it clear that it sees social care playing a crucial role in the more joined up, community-based health and care approach it wants to see supporting older people to stay fit and well at home.
“We completely agree with ministers and with Lord Darzi that this is the right direction of travel, but the question we would ask is whether it will prove possible to achieve this without the comprehensive social care reform which ministers suggest it will be impossible to achieve during this Parliament.”