Adman Trevor Beattie's decision to fund the care of nine elderly women for a year rather than have them moved to separate homes is a wonderfully magnanimous gesture. It's the sort of tale that gets everybody worked up.
You can imagine the scenario - heartless penny-pinching council ready to break up a small community of nine frail residents just to save the odd pound or two.
Then at the 11th hour in rides in a knight in shining armour proffering largesse to keep Louisa Watts and the eight other residents in the home for another year.
And it makes great reading for the Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign.
However the realities are not quite as simple. The gesture is just an example of short-termism that does not solve the underlying issues.
Wolverhampton City Council say Underhill House care home is too expensive to run and claim it would cost £2m to bring it up to national standards.
The costs of running the home are debated, with the opposition local labour party saying they are less than £150,000.
Whatever the truth of the matter the issue of finance will not go away.
The families of the nine will probably still have to find them somewhere else to live after a year and the local authority's funding problems will still remain - and in all likelihood will be even worse with a greater squeeze from central government over the coming years.
The council has a duty of care to all within its geographic area and if it agreed to continue funding the home this may well mean that another service will have to suffer.
It is surely further evidence that funding for the long-term care of older people is sorted out as quickly as possible.
Then at the 11th hour in rides in a knight in shining armour proffering largesse to keep Louisa Watts and the eight other residents in the home for another year.
And it makes great reading for the Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign.
However the realities are not quite as simple. The gesture is just an example of short-termism that does not solve the underlying issues.
Wolverhampton City Council say Underhill House care home is too expensive to run and claim it would cost £2m to bring it up to national standards.
The costs of running the home are debated, with the opposition local labour party saying they are less than £150,000.
Whatever the truth of the matter the issue of finance will not go away.
The families of the nine will probably still have to find them somewhere else to live after a year and the local authority's funding problems will still remain - and in all likelihood will be even worse with a greater squeeze from central government over the coming years.
The council has a duty of care to all within its geographic area and if it agreed to continue funding the home this may well mean that another service will have to suffer.
It is surely further evidence that funding for the long-term care of older people is sorted out as quickly as possible.
Papering over the cracks will not reolve the serious issues at stake with long-term care of older people. The Government has run away from this for far too long and should not leave it as an "after the Election" issue.