Elderly want home care but don't discuss needs Further research involving more than 10,200 over 50s found that more than three quarters of people, 77 per cent, do not discuss with their loved ones where they would like to receive care. Men are more likely not to discuss their choices, 89 per cent, than women, only 71 per cent. The figure does not increase with age despite often increasing health problems, which is why many people are left facing an emergency with little option but to go into hospital or a home, said Richard Preece, medical director at Allied Healthcare, which carried out the research. I think underlying all of this is that people don't know that they have a choice and it becomes quite difficult and so it becomes quite difficult to talk about. Often when you go into residential care you never go back to the home that you love, and so the whole conversation becomes quite emotionally charged and controversial, when it shouldn't have to be. The conversation shouldn't be about taking away independence, it should be about protecting it. If people understood that they have the choice, that they can receive care and support in their own home, they would find it much easier. People find it easier to discuss their will, funeral wishes, finances and medical issues than where they would like to be cared for, with the subject almost as difficult to broach as sex, the research found. "The reality is that people don't have the conversation, and then they have a fall or they get a chest infection and before you know it it is a crisis situation and the default position is that someone needs to go into a home or hospital," said Mr Preece What needs to happen is the plans need to be put in place beforehand, people need to have an early conversation about positive support and what you can do to protect your independence. People are more likely to have a crisis in the first place if the do not have help. While the number of over 65s living in care home is still relatively small, with the latest figures collected by charity Age UK putting the number at 414,000, it is steadily rising year on year. In comparison the number receiving home care is decreasing. In England, 414,780 over 65 received community-based care and support at home in 2012, down over 22,000 from the previous year. The research comes as the NHS reaches crisis point, with many linking the pressure on hospitals to the rising elderly population. Mike Farrar, the former head of the NHS Confederation, last month called for more care to be given in the home as hospitals have become places where people go to die.