Last week my wife and I visited a friend of ours in the care home where he now lives owing to a combination of old age, physical weakness and senile dementia. When he was living on his own he had gone beyond the point of being able to care for himself. Since entering the home he has got much better: he has lost weight (weight he needed to loose), he is cleaner and better fed and now, it seems, is settling in.

Hitherto he as interspersed complaining about the food with telling how marvellous lunch was, and has only interrupting his diatribe against the nurses to tell us he has asked one of them to marry him. On this occasion the first thing we noticed when we visited is that he had more of his stuff out. Previously he had his DVDs, his calendar, his post, and one or two bits and pieces we had given him to make the place feel more like his own. Now he has some of his own stuff, a rather nice barometer, a clock, and a couple of the paintings that he has done. So he seemed in a good mood and was evidently starting to feel more settled in his new home, when he announced, for the first time since he had arrived, that he wanted to go out.

This was a tricky issue. Although he’s lost weight he’s still not small, nor is he steady on his feet, still using a walker or a stick at times inside the home. Further, he is prone to angina attacks. He usually feels these coming and seems to be able to control them with a simple spray under the tongue, but still, he’s fragile. So we suggested the staff were asked. He pressed his buzzer and one of the nurses came, listened, and said she would ask the head nurse. She arrived shortly, and turned out to be stocky and firm, but kind and sympathetic. She had evidently learned how to handle our friend and pointed out to him in a manner that was patient and tactful but still brooked no argument that he was not in good health. He would have to go out in a wheelchair and, since the place was half way up a steepish hill, and I was not going to be able to manage that combination. Arthur accepted this judgement without complaint, and was mollified further when it was suggested to him, as an alternative, that we should wait for a really nice day and take him, by taxi, to the sea front where we could take him out in his chair.

This morning I was talking to a lady who was hoping to persuade her father to go into a home of some sort (where, she hoped, he would have more company after her mother had died) but freely accepted my point that such homes have a negative stigma for old people and, increasingly, a terrible reputation. Some care homes have rightly been closed down for abuse of those supposedly in their care and this naturally makes it harder for carers to take the already hard step of relinquishing the care of a loved of to those of residential facility. My point is that in the first place, professional care can become the only option. Our friends combination of physical and mental limitations mean that specialist care is really the only sound and safe option for him, aside from the fact that there really is nobody else. It is therefore incumbent on society in general (yes, you) to support carers in taking this necessary and, hopefully, positive step. The second thing is that for all the negative press around care homes and other facilities for old people, there are good places where people can be cared for with tireless energy, compassion and skill. We need to celebrate, encourage, support and report these places, because we will all get old in the end.

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