An estimated one in ten elderly people in care homes is still married, often in marriages that have lasted 50 years or more. Even if the couple have agreed to be apart, campaigners for the elderly say that separation is often devastating.
Beryl and Richard Driscoll, whose story made the newspapers recently have just spent their first weekend in care together, but in different parts of the UK they would not have had to have such a fight to stay together.
Woman’s Hour investigates whether, despite concerns of human rights breaches, there is a ‘postcode lottery’ for British couples wanting to stay together in old age.
