AMIDST all the controversy surrounding Tory elderly care cost plans, the way in which the plans will disproportionately impact on older women at home after their partner dies has gone largely unnoticed.

While conditions like dementia are more common in men between 65 to 75 years than women the position rapidly reverses thereafter as women start to outlive men.

So the latest figures for Northwich and Winsford show us that there were 2,890 women over 80 years of age compared with 1,860 men.

This often results in women becoming the primary carer for their partner through his later years of illness or disability while then facing a further 10, 15, even 20 years of further care living on their own.

Under Tory proposals, using the average local price of a house, ie £189,000, the bulk of the couple’s assets could easily be stripped bare within two to three years by care costs before the £100,000 limit is reached.

This places the surviving partner, usually the woman, with a greatly reduced means of meeting those additional years of care, which seems to me to be a wholly unfair consequence.

Cllr Paul Dolan, Cabinet Member Adult Social Care, Cheshire West and Chester Council and Member for Winnington and Castle Ward