Janet Ellis warns of 'care blind spot' threatening Brits with financial ruin after death of husband left family shocked
The Blue Peter star has urged Brits not to leave planning for care until the last minute.
Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis has warned of the urgent need to plan ahead for late-life care to avoid potential financial ruin when a loved one dies.
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The legendary TV personality told LBC Britain is facing a crisis after polling by charity Age Space revealed that 62 per cent of Brits are woefully unprepared for end-of-life care, with just six per cent having a concrete plan in place.
Janet said she knows all too well the perils of leaving things all too late as her family was left shocked when they found out her late husband John was dying.
“We've always been very open as a family about how we feel about things, but John dying meant that we had to think about what was going to happen when he wasn't here anymore,” Janet told LBC.
It meant out of the blue the family was forced to discuss what John's time in hospital and his care afterwards would look like.
“Many people… think it's going to be somewhere very far into the future and when it arrives, it'll be just mysteriously packaged up so that you don't have to think about it right now,” Janet said.
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John died of stage four secondary lung cancer in July 2020 at the age of 63, two years after his diagnosis.
The experience has prompted Janet to think about what her own end-of-life care might look like - and it may involve some difficult conversations with family members.
“Things can change in a heartbeat and it's very important to me that I talk about it and prepare for it,” Janet said.
She added that it should be part of everyday conversations as it affects everybody in the family.
“You want it to be part of an everyday conversation that you say: 'in a few years time, I may need a bit more help.
“How should we plan for it? Because it does affect everybody in the family.
“I'm also going to be more dependent, possibly more fragile, and my finances will have to be differently arranged. And could we talk about it now instead of at the last minute?”
While it wasn't too late for John to have a say in what his final years would look like, for others, it can come too late.
Now, Janet is leading a campaign by charity Age Space to raise awareness about the so-called ‘care blind spot’.
Roey Burden, 93, learned about this the hard way when her husband was diagnosed with dementia.
With no concrete plan in place, the couple was forced to sell-up their family home and move into rented accommodation.
She told LBC: “I know dementia is an odd thing, but he did have to eventually go into a care home and they're not cheap.
“So our only asset was the house, which we bought very reasonably 24 years prior to that.
“That was sold and a large part of it [the money] had to go on his care because he was in the care home for four and a half years.”
Roey added that her husband’s dementia put a “huge strain on everything and everybody”, adding that it was “very difficult” for her children.
She urged the public to think ahead to avoid a potential disaster.
“It’s so important. I'm relying on pensions but they've all been sorted out and, if I can live for another 10 years, I should be fine and after that I'll have to rely on my daughters.
“We've done wills, powers of attorney, we've done everything you can think of and I've even said what I want for my funeral. So you can't get much more organised than that, can you?”