ABSTRACT
The revelation of personal budgets in social care has put the rationing of social care for the elderly out front. Personal budgets will only succeed if they are properly funded, if user support services can secure sufficient income, and if the initiatives retain legitimacy. Personal budgets are already encouraging competing private provision, and much more independent thought by service-users in social care. They are freeing from mystification both prices and individual possible choices. The evidence to support the idea of personal budgets was emphasised by Vidhya Alakeson. A general commitment to increased savings would help finance that by the investment of these savings in the growing economy. The signposts to the future of ageing, and the economics of the economy itself, and of savings, pensions and elderly-care provision, are dauntingly clear in some respects. The innovation of health savings accounts would enable us to address the funding of elderly care, together with every other area of health and social care.
