Government must inject more funding into social care

Last week a House of Lords report criticised the government, and society in general, for being ‘woefully unprepared’ for the impending demographic shift which will mean that by 2030 there will be 50% more people aged over 65 and 100% more people over 85 than there were in 2010. Whilst the Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change unequivocally stated that our longer lives were a cause for celebration they stressed that the failure to address the implications of an ageing population across society could mean ‘a series of miserable crises.’

The report is important because it grasps the scale and nature of change needed across our society. Although nothing contained in the report came as a surprise to Age UK, we’ve been raising these issues for a number of years, every now and then government provide a sensible response to our ageing society, for example by encouraging and simplifying private pension savings, following Lord Turner’s report, and removing mandatory retirement ages to enable people to work for longer. But other crucial areas of policy, like the funding of social care and ensuring the standard of healthcare older people receive still await an urgent response.

Whilst several of the issues identified by the committee will become ever more pressing in the coming years, they rightly point out that social care and its funding is an area which is already in crisis, and one which will only get worse as demand grows. And of all the areas of public service which need adjustment and investment to better meet the needs of older people it is social care which requires most attention from the Treasury. The Chancellor’s announcement over the weekend that the cap on social care funding costs will be brought forward by one year is welcome but this additional funding commitment is a modest proposal given the gap in funding which exists.

The Government must urgently inject more funding into social care. Local authority provided social care is chronically underfunded; even before ‘austerity cuts’ social care funding had failed to keep pace with need. Since 2010/11 local authority spending on care has fallen by over £700 million. The gap therefore is growing all the time between what we actually spend on publicly funded care and what we need to spend to deliver a system that guarantees all older people are able to live safely and in dignity. Although the Government has provided additional investment for social care over the course of this parliament, it has not been ring-fenced and has not been enough to halt the downwards spiral in funding. As a result many older people are left without the care they need or are forced to struggle on with inadequate support. This year alone we estimate that the number of people with unmet need stands at more than 800,000. This situation is unsustainable and unfair.