Retired life is often considered as a reward for all the hard workship you have done in your adult life. During this people might have drifted apart from the friends or might have loose few poeple hence some of the old people often want to spend time in a retired home where there are people surrounding then are of the same age and also someone who can take care of them. In my belief, family should be responsible for making such arrangments rather than government.
Firstly, If government is bearing the cost of the people living in the elderly homes, there would be a huge deficit in the govenment expanditure which would in turn to have more taxes on the working class. Moreover, there would be huge pile of burden on those institutions which run these as everyone would be asking for the free services which can be economically bad for the Great Britain. Adding to that, there will be scarcity of the healthcare workers and the nurses could be overloaded with the work.
Secondly, People will not care about savings for their retirement life resulting into over-spending, which can increase number of defaulters and can have adverse effects on their children and their upbringing. Sometimes, due to these free services their children will drop the elder people in these kind of institution without their will or toture them till an extend that they are forced to go.
To conclude I would suggest that the payment for these kind of arrangment ought to be taken from the family and not from the government as it will be beneificial to the society and the economy as well.