News

writes Corin Williams

A BBC campaign has highlighted the state of caring in the UK by introducing an online “care calculator”.

Designed in conjunction with Radio 4's You and Yours programme and the London School of Economics, the  calculator gives information on social care provision for adults based on average figures for England.

Visitors to the site are led through a series of scenarios and asked what level of care they would expect in each case. When told what the actual situation would be, participants are then asked whether the reality meets their expectations. The results, which are being studied by the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the London School of Economics, will form part of the BBC’s Care in the UK season.

Social care consultant Ray Jones, former director of social services at Wiltshire Council and chair of the British Association of Social Workers, said: “It really does bring home how social care is being squeezed and how disabled and older people are then left stranded. It is shocking.”