Kate Garraway has said the cost of care for her late husband Derek Draper has left her with huge debts. Draper died aged 56 in January from the long-term effects of Covid. She spoke about her financial struggles in her latest ITV documentary, Kate Garraway: Derek's Story.
Acknowledging her well-paid job as a presenter on Good Morning Britain, Garraway said the £16,000-a-month care costs exceeded her ITV salary. "Derek's care costs more than my salary from ITV," she said, adding that after paying for a mortgage, household bills and child costs, she is "at a crunch point" and "in debt."
In the documentary, she highlighted the failures of the care system, stating that time and again the system tells her Derek is not sick enough to qualify for funded care. Her appeal has not been processed in two-and-a-half to three years. "If this is what it's like for me, what on earth is it like for everybody else?" she asked.
Garraway noted that the basic care costs nearly £4,000 a week, excluding therapies she pays for herself. She criticised the underfunded and complicated system, saying families are left feeling as though they have "fallen off a cliff" when home care is not properly supported.
The documentary, airing Tuesday evening on ITV, comes amid long-standing promises of reform to adult social care funding. Currently, only those with assets below £23,250 are eligible for council-funded care, a threshold unchanged for over a decade, leaving many families financially and emotionally abandoned.
