Separating elderly couples against their wishes when one or both move to care homes must end, Britain’s most senior family judge has said. Sir James Munby said it was “simply inhumanity” that couples who have spent decades together can be separated in their final years,
In a speech … he said such practices could be fatal … He urged social workers to apply a “common decency test” and do more to keep couples together.
Sir James, the president of the family division of the High Court, said it was “absolutely shocking and a profound indictment of our society” that elderly, vulnerable couples who wanted to live together were sometimes refused shared accommodation and told, “you’re going to go here, you’re going to go there”.