By John Wigglesworth, Durrington

The cost of care for the elderly has reached £30,000 a year. Most patients today have spent more than the value of their houses, leaving them in the position that they have no inheritance for their next of kin.

I met a patient who was in a home for nine years! The management of the home was looking for cheaper accommodation but, as luck would have it, an aunt died and left her a house. So on the merry-go-round she stayed!

In the 1970s, elderly patients were put in care into the NHS system. Well-trained nurses used two wards systems, one for men and one for women. I worked in those wards maintaining them. The patients were happy and well-looked-after in every conceivable way.

So why did the NHS take them out of the system: was it the name they used? Geriatric? Not the nicest sounding, but they were well-treated and happy and in the older age group. Just what would it take to keep them open? It would need a system of increasing the National Health Service element charge. But to save money at the end of a patient’s life would repay that tenfold.

Giving money to your loved ones is what is all about, isn’t it? Inheritance is new to the working class. It was once impossible and only for the super-rich.

That inheritance may give your children and grandchildren a chance to take on the role of inheritance too! Yet another reason for us to love our NHS!