Dear Colleague
I attach below a press release from the UK voluntary organisation Help The Aged on behalf of the Social Policy Ageing and Information Network
The report itself can be downloaded freely from
http://www.helptheaged.org.uk/PDFFILES/socialcarereport.pdf
All the best
Davdi McDaid
LSE Health and Social Care
Social care rationing puts older lives at risk claims new report
A comprehensive report from 21 organisations working with older
people exposes the rationing of social care services for older people,
and a care sector in crisis.
The report shows that over one million older people are struggling to
access care, both in their own homes and in residential care, due to
the Government's chronic underfunding of social care.
It claims the Government is putting older peoples' lives at risk and
jeopardising its own NHS plan objectives because it is failing to invest
in and provide social care services. Older people cannot get the right
care in the right place at the right time because the Government's
funding strategy neither meets nor even measures the scale of need.
The Social Policy Ageing and Information Network (SPAIN) report has
been written and led by Help the Aged, Centre for Policy on Ageing,
Arthritis Care, Age Concern and Alzheimer's Society.
Social care is a necessity, not a luxury. It includes enabling people to
get in and out of bed, dressing, bathing, going to the toilet, eating,
washing clothes and living in a clean environment. Increasingly such
care includes changing catheters, dressings, treating pressure sores
and managing medication.
But the SPAIN report shows that social care for older people is being
rationed with devastating effect in three key areas.
Home Care - The number of older people receiving home care
is in decline, despite the number of people over 85 at its highest
ever1. Thousands of people are denied the home care they need
because social services are so severely rationed. The
Government has failed to increase funding levels to meet the
needs of this fastest growing proportion of the population.
Residential Care - The residential and nursing home sector in
particular is in a state of great upheaval, with over 35,000 beds
lost due to care home closures in the last three years. While
insufficient local authority free levels, combined with high staff
vacancy and turnover rates, are threatening the Government's
own targets for quality standards in residential care, older
people are forced to make traumatic moves to alternative care
homes, many of which are inappropriate for their care needs and
are far from friends and family.
Hospital Discharge - In the last year, 700,000 older patients
experienced problems and delay in leaving hospital, mainly due
to a lack of community and residential care services. While the
Government has pledged £300 million over two years to resolve
delayed discharge, this falls far short of the long term strategic
funding required to secure integrated quality care for older
people leaving hospital.
As the Government is currently planning its future spending
programme, the SPAIN group is calling for a raft of urgent actions
including:
A commitment by the Department of Health to increase social
care spending. Local authorities currently spend £4 billion net
per year on older people's services. This is a nine per cent
overspend of Government allocation, and still does not nearly
meet the need. A substantial increase is required to increase
the availability and quality of services to meet older people's
social care needs
An urgent, across the board review of social care funding by the
Department of Health. This must be based on a realistic
assessment of the costs of providing social care to the level and
quality required to meet the Government objectives
The establishment of a National Care Commission. This would
measure demographic and spending changes, set national
benchmarks of quality service and ensure transparency and
accountability for users.
Help the Aged Head of Policy, Tessa Harding said:
"The majority of older people needing social care are in
their 80s and 90s and all need help to manage day to
day living. Health and social care are part of the same
system, and while the Government has invested new
funds into the NHS, it has failed to make a similar
commitment for social care. This must now be made an
absolute priority by the Department of Health."
Dr Gillian Dalley, Director of the Centre for Policy on Ageing said:
"Many of the valuable targets to improve the quality of
older peoples care in the NHS Plan and the National
Service Framework will fall by the wayside if this
imbalance in funding between health and social care is
not addressed urgently. Increasing local integration of
services is not being matched with the adequate
resourcing of social care to enable the systems to work.
This is seriously undermining attempts to improve the
quality of care for those who receive it and access to
support for those who are left to care for themselves."
Neil Betteridge, Head of Public Policy and Campaigning at Arthritis
Care said:
"The SPAIN report is a shocking indictment of how so
many vulnerable people are having their basic civil and
human rights eroded through lack of the most basic
support.
There are eight million people in the UK with arthritis and
the majority are elderly. Many need help with tasks such
as dressing and washing, things critical for common
decency and dignity to be maintained.
At a time when the Government is in other ways
providing enhanced rights and support to older and
disabled people, their neglect of social care not only
undermines their own policies but scandalously leaves
millions in severe hardship. The Government cannot act
soon enough to address this in the ways recommended
in the report."
Notes to Editors
1. Appendix 2, The Underfunding of Social Care and its
Consequences for Older People
The SPAIN group comprises Help the Aged, Alzheimer's Society,
Arthritis Care, Centre for Policy on Ageing, Age Concern England,
Anchor Trust, Association of Charity Officers, Association of Retired
Persons 050, Carers UK, Care and Repair, Counsel and Care, Greater
London Forum for the Elderly, Hanover Housing Association, Health
and Older People, Housing 21, Methodist Homes for the Aged,
National Association of Citizen Advice Bureaux, Parkinson's Disease
Society, Relatives and Residents Association, Stroke Association, The
Leveson Centre.
Case studies are available on request
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