A LETTER to Chancellor Osborne and Health Secretary Hunt signed by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Care Provider Alliance, which represents agencies providing care, and the NHS Confederation says that vital care services for older and disabled people in England are at risk.
These leading care and health bodies are demanding crisis talks with government over the unravelling of measures in George Osborne’s spending review that were supposed to prop up the undermined social care system that looks after millions of elderly people.
The four groups representing care and health organisations warned of a speeding up of the rate of closures of care homes and companies providing homecare. The groups called for urgent talks and say they want in particular to know what happened to the £6bn that the government said in July it would save by postponing the introduction of a cap on individual care costs to 2020.
The council chiefs, NHS managers and care bosses in their letter warn that the Tory plans are leaving a huge funding gap and are putting the most vulnerable people at great risk. The groups also want to discuss the equitable sharing of the optional 2% council tax levy and further financial steps to enable and allow payment to care workers next April of the government’s national living wage.
The groups warn that, ‘Without concerted action across government and the sector, the settlement is not sufficient, not targeted at the right geographies and will not come soon enough to resolve the care funding crisis.’ This means that millions of the elderly will go without and many more ‘care providers will fail’.
More elderly and disabled people will go without services they need and more care providers will fail. The group insist that ‘This is likely to accelerate fastest in those areas of the country where providers are predominantly reliant on state-funded clients. These are exactly the areas that will raise the least council tax.’
Care services, including care homes and services that provide help in people’s homes for tasks such as washing and dressing, are overseen by local councils. The reality is that over the Cameron and Osborne austerity years, the numbers getting help have fallen as councils have been unable to cope because of the savage cuts in their budgets.
Only the very poorest people get any help. Those people with assets of over £23,250 have to pay the full cost of their care. In his last month’s Autumn Spending Review, Osborne said he was protecting social care budgets by allowing local authorities to raise council tax by 2% and increasing the amount of money available for the Better Care Fund, a joint pot of money used by councils and the NHS to support care services.
He claimed that this would mean that care budgets will rise and that this was vital since the NHS would not be able to ‘function effectively without good social care’. The care providers letter rubbished this claim. It pointed out that social care provided in an individual’s home or in residential care is not free – only the poorest get help.
This means that the number of older and disabled people receiving council help fell by 28% between 2009-10 and 2013-14. The current situation is that an estimated 1.5 million older people with care needs rely on family and friends for help and would die without this help.
One in 10 older people faced bills in excess of £100,000 over their lifetime for care! The letter emphasises that the amount of money council tax brings in varies greatly, with local authorities in poorer areas much worse off than the more affluent areas.
The Local Government Association pointed out that the income it gets from the central government grant and business rates – fell by 24% in real terms this Parliament. The social care crisis is reaching desperation point. Workers in the trade unions have a duty to defend the elderly by taking action to bring down the Tories and bringing in a workers government and socialism.
