Elderly Couples to Stay Together

~ March 8th, 2008

Ivan Lewis MP

This week, the Government announced plans to build more “extra care” housing for vulnerable couples to live in. This means that more elderly couples will be able to remain together when one of them is taken into care.

Recently, there have been multiple high-profile cases of elderly couples traumatically forced apart when one or both of them is taken into care. Health Secretary Alan Johnson said:

We must help to make ’til death us do part’ a reality for older couples who are too often separated when one of them has to go into care.

Health and Care Minister Ivan Lewis said:

Extra care housing is about offering people a choice. Too often I hear of cases where a couple who have been together for over fifty years are forced apart because one requires care and has no choice but to enter residential or nursing care leaving their partner at home. I want to change that and extra care housing will give people a choice about how and where they choose to spend their later life.