'The plan is that if I get very ill, the house will be sold and I will put the money into a good nursing home - and the money won't last forever, so I hope I will only live as long as it lasts. But I don't know where to go or who to talk to about these things'

'It would be the last resort to go to a nursing home . . . It wouldn't be fair to burden my daughter-in-law . . . I have a feeling that God will take me before that day, but whatever. No one's going to bother with me, anyway, if anything happens'

- respondents to a Health and Social Services for Older People survey on long-term care