Responding to the latest delayed transfers of care figures
published today by NHS England, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, Chairman of
the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board,
said:
“Councils have now reduced the average number of delayed
transfers of care days attributed to social care since June 2017
by 40 per cent.
“To help reduce pressures on the NHS, adult social care needs to
be put on an equal footing with the health service and councils
need urgent funding to invest in effective prevention work to
reduce the need for people to be admitted to hospital in the
first place. This is why the LGA has launched its own adult
social care green paper to kick-start a desperately-needed debate
following the delay of the Government’s green paper.
“To help tackle this, the Government needs to address immediate
pressures and plug the funding gap facing adult social care which
is set to exceed £3.5 billion by 2025, just to maintain existing
standards of care, while latest figures show that councils in
England receive 1.8 million new requests for adult social care a
year – the equivalent of nearly 5,000 a day.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
- · The
LGA’s green paper consultation is available here. The
consultation will run for eight weeks from 31 July. The LGA
will respond to the findings in a further publication in the
autumn, which will be used to influence the Government’s own
expected green paper, forthcoming Autumn Budget for 2019/20 and
Spending Review.
-
· Recent surveys by the
LGA show that 96 per cent of councils and lead members believe
there is a major funding problem with adult social care; 89 per
cent said taxation must be part of the long-term solution to
funding it, and that 87 per cent of the public support more
funding to plug the significant funding gap in the
sector.
- The latest delayed transfers of care figures for June 2018
are available here.
- Since June 2017, delays due to social care have fallen by 40
per cent, while delays due to the NHS have fallen by 14 per cent.
