Commenting on the CQCs State of Care report,
Nuffield Trust Director of Strategy Helen Buckingham said:
“Today’s report from the CQC presents a worrying
picture of the state of health and care services, but its
findings are sadly not surprising. While it is encouraging that
with the continued commitment of frontline staff the NHS and
social care sector have, on the whole, been able to maintain good
services over the last year, the report lays bare the scale of
the task to improve and enhance care at a time of worrying
workforce shortages and unresolved funding issues.
“As the NHS enters another difficult winter it
is particularly alarming that nearly half of all emergency
departments, according to the CQC, require improvement or are
inadequate [1]. Yet while the NHS awaits its £20bn boost and a
long term plan, which could go some way to addressing these
challenges, the cavalry is not coming for social care [2].
Spending on social care services for older people in England has
fallen by 20% per capita since 2010, so the CQC is absolutely
right to point out that the efforts of that investment risk being
undermined if they are not complemented by an equally bold and
realistic plan and hard cash for social care too.
“Policy makers are currently doing a good job of
talking the talk of a more integrated way of providing care for
patients but as this report shows, for some people this isn’t the
reality of their experiences. This problem won’t be solved by
money alone: the challenge will be for both national and local
leaders to demonstrate how they can enable these services to work
together and provide more joined up care for patients.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
[if !supportLists]1.
[endif]According to the
report 7% of urgent and emergency care services were rated as
inadequate and 41% were rated as requires improvement
overall.
[if !supportLists]2.
[endif]HM Treasury’s
Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses show that spending per
head on personal social services for older people in England fell
from £156 in 2010/11 to £140 in 2016/17. In real terms, this is
equivalent to going from £178 to £142, a 20% fall.
