Adass Survey Shows £890m Cut In Social Care Spending Last Year

by Dr. Ros Altmann

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How can we deliver decent care if funding falls as demand for care rises?

“These results once again highlight the crisis we are facing with our social care system. There is a growing demand for care services and yet councils are continuing to cut funding making it difficult to deliver decent care.

“The extra £7.2bn funding promised by 2015 will not help unless it is protected by ring fencing for care. As long as local councils are under financial pressure and our social care system relies on council spending, it will be impossible to ensure that the money is actually spent on the care that is so urgently needed.

“There has been an overwhelming response from charities, companies and other stakeholders urging the Government to address the issues with our social care system. As the UK’s largest provider of homecare, we would like to help address this problem immediately and get a system in place which provides a fair balance between people saving and helping themselves and getting help from the state to ensure quality care for all.

“ADASS is calling for a sustainable framework and urgent reforms and we strongly endorse that call. We urge the Government to move forward with its White Paper on social care and confront the reality of the care crisis.”

ENDS

Notes to editors
Saga and ADASS is part of an alliance with other major organisations involved in providing, commissioning and using care, calling for urgent and significant reform of the country’s current unfair system.

The six point plan summary agreed by these organisations was as follows:
We need:

1. A new national system for social care.
2. National provision of information and advice.
3. Extra funding for the care system.
4. To ensure that additional funding intended for adult social care is spent on adult social care.
5. Government to clarify what responsibility individuals have for social care needs – in a Dilnot-style partnership approach.
6. We must act now!

The organisations involved are Saga, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, Baroness Greengross, English Community Care Association, Four Seasons Health Care, Jewish Care, International Longevity Centre, Shared Lives+, The Stroke Association and United Kingdom Homecare Association.