13/07/2016
Councils have warned the elderly that with a shortfall of £1bn in funding will make it nearly impossible for them to assist the elderly adequately.
Directors of adult social services said the outlook for care provision – from help with cooking and cleaning at home to full-time residential care – was grim, with financial resources increasingly stretched and unable to keep up with the rising requirements for support.
Powers given that gave councils access to paltry amounts of money through council tax were not enough to cover a miniscule percentage of total costs.
Charities warned of disastrous social costs that the cuts would ultimately entail. After five years of funding cuts, less elderly people than ever were found to be entitled to funding.
According to the Guardian, at least a quarter of the £940m savings target for 2016-17 will come from service cuts or reductions in size of the personal budgets given to people to pay for care and support. Job losses and increased fees and charges are also likely.
Harold Bodmer, the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, which carries out the annual survey, said ministers needed to give the social services the same assurances and support as the NHS.
He said: “Services are already being cut, and the outlook for future care is bleak. We’re at a tipping point where social care is in jeopardy, and unless the government addresses the chronic underfunding of the sector, there will be worrying consequences for the NHS and, most importantly, older and disabled people, their families and carers.”
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Councils have raised £382m of additional money from the social care precept just this year – but the point of the policy is that it can give increased revenue over time, rising to £2bn a year by 2019-20.
“We know that protecting services whilst delivering necessary efficiencies is challenging, which is why we are working with the local government and Adass to support councils to make savings.”
Social care has had to endure a £4.6bn cut over the past 5 years. This represents a 31% reduction in the allocation of funding. Over 40% of cuts have come from the so called front line services, appearing to contradict the government’s earlier claims that savings would be mostly from bureaucratic waste.
The fact that Britain has an aging population means that even with small social care budget increases, as people live longer the strain of taking care of them becomes more and more apparent.
Richard Humphries, assistant director of policy at the King’s Fund think tank, said: “Our assessment of these findings is that the immediate prospects for the social care system, on which older and disabled people depend, are grave and deteriorating.
“The diminishing confidence that local authorities can meet their most basic legal duties to provide care for the most vulnerable citizens should be a huge source of public concern.”
Nick Forbes, the senior vice-chair of the Local Government Association, said: “It cannot be solely left to local council taxpayers to fix our chronically underfunded social care system. Councils, care providers, charities and the NHS are all united around the need for central government to fully fund adult social care as this is vital to ensure our loved ones enjoy the dignified and independent quality of life they deserve.
“As a starting point, the government should bring forward £700m of desperately needed social care funding earmarked for the end of the decade to allow councils to protect vital social care services essential to easing the pressure on care providers and on the NHS.”
Alice Mitchell-Pye, the policy manager at the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, said England had reached a breaking point in social care. “That two-thirds of social care directors are not confident they can deliver their statutory duties this year should ring alarm bells for us all.
“Failure to do so means in reality that thousands of disabled and older people will be left isolated without the vital support they need to get up, washed and dressed, or forced to make impossible choices in flying care visits.”
Written By:
Daniel James
www.danieljamesbio.com
LinkedIn
