Coming back to the UK after 45 years living abroad.

Good post annaram. Thank you.

I'll put my tin hat now? I feel quite angry that people who have lived abroad for decades think, as soon as health etc gets bad, that they think it's ok to swan back to the uk to use the nhs which they haven't contributed to via taxes etc. There are uk residents waiting for operations, assessments, care or who have paid in all their working life. You chose to live abroad so you need to live with the consequences.

As sad as the problem is I completely agree with both Quizqueen (never done that before!) and cupaffull. It seems strange to me that a fair number of GN disagree with refugees coming here, even some to join families that are already here.

I’m sorry to hear of your problems. But the harsh reality is why should they be entitled to anything when they have not contributed To the British economy for 45 years. They shouldn’t expect anything.

Hi Kitty. As you will be aware Dementia is treated differently from any other condition/disease/illness. It is classed as a 'social care' problem and such care is not funded by the NHS nor Social Services, unless the person with dementia has exhausted almost all their income and savings. So if they are broke and not sure if they would receive any UK pension, I doubt if any care home would be willing to accept them. Many private Care Homes insist on proof that the resident or the family have sufficient resources to cover Care Home fees for the foreseeable future.

ajswan

Oh I do love it, not, when people live abroad for many years and when they get older, decide to come back and use our NHS and all the other benefits.

Not to mention taking advantage of a racist, oppressive regime where they could be dominant just because of the colour of their skin.

I know, different times, different values. Still doesn't make it right. Nor does coming back when times are hard.

I understand you're trying to be supportive, kittylester, which is really kind of you. In reality, what needs to happen is that their children need to step up and help. Do they actually understand the severity of their parents position?

Thank you granny23. Part of our thinking is that there is more support here from family and dbil is nowhere near that position yet.

Does anyone ever read a thread before they post?

The position in SA is very different to here. Their children do understand and would step up if the road between their houses was passable.

It is very judgemental to say they took advantage of the oppressive regime. You know nothing about how they lived their lives there.

We had retired to Cyprus when, in June 2012, DH had a major stroke. When certified ‘ fit to fly’, we returned to UK to live with DD, an Occupational Therapist. On landing at Liverpool airport, we had to pay £400 for an ambulance to take DH to hospital and stroke unit. On his discharge, 10 weeks later, a visitor from DHSS informed us we were not liable for Attendance Allowance or, indeed, any benefit, or help with adaptations, for 6 months. GP, fortunately, accepted us on his list. It’s a minefield with the odds often stacked against the UK citizen who returns!

It's easy to make simplistic judgements, based not on facts but supposition.

I completely support Kitty. She wants to be able to help her family in SOUTH AFRICA, not in Germany or Cyprus or France. SOUTH AFRICA is altogether a different kettle of fish. I grew up there in apartheid days. Many many people from Britain and elsewhere went there after the war because it was seen as a land of opportunity, good lifestyle, cheap servants etc. I came back in the early 60s as Britain was then seen as a very exciting place compared to SA. But as time went on and apartheid vanished and an African government was elected, SA went to the opposite extreme. It has very high crime rates and is very unfair to its white residents. Obviously they now want to come back in order to have a more stable old age, and if they have a British passport would you deny them that, when so many others are allowed to come here with not a drop of British blood and get benefits?

It’s a very difficult situation. The position of people who lived in Europe may be different, I don’t know. But people who moved abroad, didn’t keep up their NI contributions in the way GagaJo, which was the sensible thing to do, shouldn’t expect that because they are now old and ill, they can now up sticks and move back to Britain, and be treated by the system that they haven’t paid into for all their lives.
Obviously it’s a difficult situation for kitty as it’s her family, and we try to do what we can for our families, but at the end of the day, people who move abroad for a better life, and pay their taxes to a different state, should not be entitled to anything from the taxes I paid and still pay to our government.

I think the colonisation of Africa was wrong and any Westerners that emigrated there 45 years ago, in the 1970's WOULD have been taking advantage of the oppressive and racist apartheid regime. How is that NOT true? Please feel free to explain the point if I am completely wrong?

Yes, prioritising blacks now is positive discrimination. It is to make up for the positive discrimination of whites that your BIL enjoyed for years.

I would have a slightly different view if they were born there. An accident of birth is unavoidable and outside of our control. But to move somewhere as rampantly and violently racist in the 1970s means they actively participated in that system.

100% agreed GagaJo.

But I wasn’t brave enough to say it.

Annaram1 Sat 01-Aug-20 11:56:00
Many many people from Britain and elsewhere went there after the war because it was seen as a land of opportunity, good lifestyle, cheap servants etc.
On the backs of racism and apartheid.

SA went to the opposite extreme. It has very high crime rates and is very unfair to its white residents.
As the whites were previously to the blacks (see the above quote).

when so many others are allowed to come here with not a drop of British blood and get benefits?
And yet more racism.

You are not supporting KL's point, Annaram1. As you've said, immigrants to SA went directly to benefit from the racist apartheid regime.

Quizqueen yes you are very brave to come out with that comment. A good few years ago I used to read the saga magazine and each month they did a article on British people moving abroad for retirement. Most I would say 95% said they would come back to the UK when either of them needed healthcare from the nhs. Some had been living abroad for a large bulk of the ageing years where the country of choice was good enough to benefit from their wealth but when they need free healthcare and nursing homes they return to Britain. Many people would comment on the unfairness of just using the UK for free care when the UK wasn’t deemed good enough to spend their hard earned retirement money. Our services are well overstretched and becoming much harder to access unless you pay for it. At one time we were paying over £800 a week for my mums care when she first developed dementia.

I would put all politics etc. aside and concentrate on having my family back to be treated here. Who would refuse that ?

There are plenty of our own who've never done a days work in their lives but still receive everything that opens and shuts !

I feel desperately sorry for the couple in question and SA must be a very difficult place to be in their circumstances. I do hope that they find some way of getting support, but I also hope that it makes people think before they decide to live abroad. It's fine in your salad days, but you will need a lot of savings and good luck to deal with the exigencies of old age! Services have to be paid for somehow, and it's not fair to ask tax-payers to pay for everyone who didn't make provision when they could have done so.

We returned to the UK after 44 years absence, 11 years in SA. It has taken a good deal of time and a huge amount of effort to assimilate. Perhaps we came back too late in our mid-70s? It is certainly far from easy. However, whilst in Belgium and France, we paid into their health systems, which have a reciprocal arrangement with the UK. Did not apply when we were in SA or Oz or Swizzle.
We have since managed to register with an NHS doctors' practice locally, and even found an NHS dentist - lucky us.
We had to write to the Tax Department for a tax file number. There are many hurdles through which one has to jump before being "legal" here. We have still to see about our driving licences.
If your rellies would like to correspond with us directly, please feel free to do so - we like to think we have a wealth of experience under our belts by now. They will miss a lot of things about SA, noticeably the sunshine - weather here is often appalling in comparison [except Belgium]!!!

Having a UK bank account and being in receipt of UK based pensions will be a great help in re-establishing themselves in the UK. My son returned from the USA with neither of these and was told he needed ID to open a bank account, his passport was one proof source but he hadn't anything else they would accept and it wasn't until he managed to open a bank account that he could apply for any kind of help. He has been accepted for Universal Credit as he is under pension age, I believe they have told him he will receive a state pension at the appropriate age but that this might not be the full pension unless he gets enough NIC credits by working for 35 years or more.

Emergency treatment is available free.

Maybe the problem of UK citizens returning to this country wanting to accept treatment on the NHS, State Pensions, etc should be addressed by the Government. In the USA you have to give up your citizenship completely of pay your taxes just like any other citizen. I can see that there should be a deduction for the services they won't use like schooling, etc but access to social care, medical treatment and pensions should be kept open by a form of insurance. Mind you, I also think that people who have never worked in this country without good reason should have limited assistance too.

I will repeat this

I said, if they decided to come back here! I also said they have not said they intend to!!

Gagajo, as I said, you know nothing about DBiL's life. He went to SA for short period for work and, like many people do in those circumstances, fell in love with the place.

The owner of the company died, DBiL decided to buy the widow out and continued to run it. It only had 2 other employees (both black) The positive discrimination in this case was in favour of the Chinese (a huge kickback to various people in power was involved) They had no servants rather my sil taught in underprivileged schools as a volunteer. But, you carry on with your blind prejudice about other people and the way they live their lives.

KL's BiL was seizing the opportunities which opened up to him at the time, and it is common for many people who move abroad to live for the moment. My mother went to South Africa in the 50's to work. For years she was a governess to the High Commissioner on a tobacco farm. I'm guessing she wasn't contributing to the local economy nor paying into the system. I know it affected her UK pension though as she hadn't paid in sufficient to receive one. I remember her asking if she could pay it back with compound interest during her working life but she wasn't allowed to make up the shortfall. She was just told to apply for social security when she was old which she was against doing. There was no problem with her accessing NHS healthcare, however, as I was born shortly after her return to the UK.