NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
A stark warning is issued over the future funding of adult social services, with care for elderly and disabled people to be hit.
Budget cuts will result in a shortfall of funding for elderly care.
The “already bleak outlook” for social care funding is about to become “even bleaker”, according to a survey on social care budgets.
The survey, carried out by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), shows the association plans to save £800m in the next 12 months – resulting in a shortfall in services for older people and people with disabilities.
Between 2011 and 2014, £2.68bn will have been removed from the adult social care budget, ADASS said.
This decrease in spending, or what ADASS describes as a “saving”, comes about by “providing different, more cost effective packages of care, or reduced levels of care, to many elderly or disabled people”, according to Sandie Keene, ADASS president.
Two trends indicated by the survey show that 13% of the planned reductions in spending – £104m – will result in direct withdrawal of services.
Mrs Keene said: “Gazing into the next two years, without additional investment from that already planned, an already bleak outlook becomes even bleaker.
“Directors everywhere are well aware of the difficult economic choices the country is facing and having to make. And we are well aware of the enormous help given to our departments by inward transfers of NHS funds.
“Social services departments, too, have gone many an extra mile to make their services more efficient although, as our survey shows, these efficiencies are sometimes nowhere near so ‘painless’ as they sometimes seem.”
The survey was conducted in April of this year and 145 of the 152 top-tier social services authorities in England responded.
When asked which areas had been affected to date, 30% of directors said that fewer people can access services, and nearly 50% said that providers are facing financial difficulties.
The survey said 86% of directors thought that the quality of life for services users had not been lowered, with 5% saying that it had.
Looking to the next two years, 55% of directors feel that the quality of life for users will not worsen, while almost 19% think it will.
Some 50% of ADASS members think that fewer people will be able to access adult social care services in two years’ time, while 57% think providers will be facing greater financial difficulty and 42% anticipate more legal challenges.
Mrs Keene called for “a comprehensive reform of our social care and health system”, which “adequately acknowledges the implications of funding change” and “successfully brings together the fully focused and effectively integrated resources of both local authority and NHS services”.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We took the decision to prioritise adult social care and provide extra funding to help in maintaining access to services for the first time ever.
“We are also bringing in a cap on reasonable care costs to ensure everyone will get the care they need and end the unfairness of, and fear caused by, unlimited care costs.
“We have already seen examples of local authorities redesigning services to find more efficient ways of working.
“Many local authorities are innovating and achieving much greater integration between health and care services, thereby improving care for people and optimising use of resources available.”
Helga Pile, Unison’s national officer for social services, said the union’s members in social services were “fighting an uphill struggle”.
“They are losing funding, losing staff and losing confidence in Government policy, which shifts and skates over this very serious area of providing decent long term help for the elderly,” she added.
The survey, carried out by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), shows the association plans to save £800m in the next 12 months – resulting in a shortfall in services for older people and people with disabilities.
Between 2011 and 2014, £2.68bn will have been removed from the adult social care budget, ADASS said.
This decrease in spending, or what ADASS describes as a “saving”, comes about by “providing different, more cost effective packages of care, or reduced levels of care, to many elderly or disabled people”, according to Sandie Keene, ADASS president.
Two trends indicated by the survey show that 13% of the planned reductions in spending – £104m – will result in direct withdrawal of services.
Mrs Keene said: “Gazing into the next two years, without additional investment from that already planned, an already bleak outlook becomes even bleaker.
“Directors everywhere are well aware of the difficult economic choices the country is facing and having to make. And we are well aware of the enormous help given to our departments by inward transfers of NHS funds.
“Social services departments, too, have gone many an extra mile to make their services more efficient although, as our survey shows, these efficiencies are sometimes nowhere near so ‘painless’ as they sometimes seem.”
The survey was conducted in April of this year and 145 of the 152 top-tier social services authorities in England responded.
When asked which areas had been affected to date, 30% of directors said that fewer people can access services, and nearly 50% said that providers are facing financial difficulties.
The survey said 86% of directors thought that the quality of life for services users had not been lowered, with 5% saying that it had.
Looking to the next two years, 55% of directors feel that the quality of life for users will not worsen, while almost 19% think it will.
Some 50% of ADASS members think that fewer people will be able to access adult social care services in two years’ time, while 57% think providers will be facing greater financial difficulty and 42% anticipate more legal challenges.
Mrs Keene called for “a comprehensive reform of our social care and health system”, which “adequately acknowledges the implications of funding change” and “successfully brings together the fully focused and effectively integrated resources of both local authority and NHS services”.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We took the decision to prioritise adult social care and provide extra funding to help in maintaining access to services for the first time ever.
“We are also bringing in a cap on reasonable care costs to ensure everyone will get the care they need and end the unfairness of, and fear caused by, unlimited care costs.
“We have already seen examples of local authorities redesigning services to find more efficient ways of working.
“Many local authorities are innovating and achieving much greater integration between health and care services, thereby improving care for people and optimising use of resources available.”
Helga Pile, Unison’s national officer for social services, said the union’s members in social services were “fighting an uphill struggle”.
“They are losing funding, losing staff and losing confidence in Government policy, which shifts and skates over this very serious area of providing decent long term help for the elderly,” she added.
