Is this the end of care as we know it?
by Paul Roberts
AS THE UK faces unprecedented cuts in public spending, two key questions are being asked: Is it time for local authorities to focus on commissioning care, not providing it? And can cash-strapped Scotland afford to continue providing free personal care for the elderly?
Many local authorities are looking to reduce their social care spending by between 25 and 40% as they face major cutbacks in their budgets over the next three years. Jobs will be lost – and many councils will look to out-source more social care work to charities and independent providers.
So do these drastic times demand drastic measures? Well, there are growing calls for local authorities to ‘bite the bullet’ and accept that they may no longer have the resources to provide home care services.
A Government ‘think tank’ has already suggested that the possibility of the NHS taking over responsibility for social care funding from local authorities be investigated.
Tony Banks, the influential chairman of Scotland’s Balhousie Care Group, has called for local authorities to be commissioning care, not providing it. In a hard-hitting article in The Scotsman, he said: ‘Their (council) properties should be sold to the private sector, releasing hundreds of millions of pounds, or leased to private providers, providing a lucrative revenue-stream for councils facing severe budget cuts.’
Mr Banks said that the funding of long-term care was a socio-economic time bomb that successive governments at Westminster and Holyrood had ‘failed to defuse’. Warning that ‘inaction was not an option’, he has suggested that there be a 1p increase on the basic rate of tax (raising £4.5 billion a year across the UK) ring-fenced to help pay for the long term care of the elderly.
Meanwhile, there are growing fears that free personal care in Scotland – presently costing about £376 million a year – could be unsustainable. Scotland is expecting budget cuts of about £1.5 billion for the 2011-2012 financial year – about 6% of its total spending.
The Scottish Government has given a clear commitment to continuing with free care, saying it has improved the lives of tens of thousands of vulnerable elderly people.
Question marks over the future of free personal care for the elderly have been raised by COSLA, the representative voice of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. It believes that now may be the right time to look at the affordability of the policy, particularly as the cost of free care has doubled since it was first introduced in 2003.
Under the policy, people aged over 65 who live at home are not charged for personal care services, while those paying their own way in care homes get £149 a week for personal care and £69 for nursing care.
September 25th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
The government has been trying to keep housing prices artificially inflated.
October 31st, 2010 at 1:45 pm
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