Exactly, lyn. It should fall under NHS, but we can't, apparently afford it. The ones who are really well off don't have this problem. My mother had her own solution. She died within a week of being admitted to one, at 93! But she could have paid the bills comfortably out of taxed income if she'd lived to a 120 +, and not really notice, though she'd still complain about the price. But it is pretty sick that people who are not in her position should find that their sole asset of any value, their home, should be sold to pay for this, and that must include thousands of ordinary tax-payers who have never been well off, by any measure, and who probably bought their home on a mortgage, out of taxed income, and found that willy-nilly, it was valued at vastly more , in the ratio of average earnings to price, than it was when they bought it. Still, they may avoid the embarrassment to their executors of having to pay 40 per cent on the profit on gains above the inheritance tax threshold!