Last week the Government made a start on placing details into the proposals first announced in the Public Spending Review in relation to the UK’s social care budget.
The announcement will affect well over 12 million people, a fifth of our population, with estimates of disabled adults and the elderly/frail amounting to around 7-10 million (depending on the survey), around 800,000 disabled children, and around 6 million people with substantial caring responsibilities, often unpaid family, friends and neighbours. These people are just the people who have been living in the governments “big society” for decades, giving their time and energy to our families, charities, support groups and communities often for no reward, and mostly at the cost of their own hopes, aspirations, education and employment.
Certain promises of additional spending over the coming 4 years will today grab some headlines.
£400 million pounds of extra funding for respite care sounds a lot.
£800 million pounds of additional money into adult social care via the NHS also attracts attention.
However, the headline figures do not tell the whole story.
For example, if the £400 million of additional respite for carers was to be broken down into an amount for each carer (not even including the cost of the administration of this funding) then it would equate to around £67 each. Given that respite care is expensive, then the amount for each care would provide no more than a few hours of respite per year.
In addition, the cost of respite care is not simply about the cost of the carer’s break. Crucially, it will involve providing alternative care to disabled people when the carer takes that break.
This will inevitably fall to Local Authorities whose duty it is to assess, plan, arrange and provide such services.
It is difficult to imagine how that demand will be met when Local Authorities are being told to drastically cut their spending in all departments including Social Care.
Many Local Authorities will have no option but to tighten their policies on eligibility for services, making only the most needy people eligible.
At present, using the binding Policy of Fairer Access to Care Services (FACS), a person’s needs are determined in one of four “bands” – Low, Moderate, Substantial or Critical.
Most Councils will currently provide services to people in the substantial or critical bands. Some offer support services to people in the moderate band.
All this is likely to change, with only those in critical need being owed any duty.
This will not only leave literally hundreds of thousands of severely disabled people with less, or no support, but – crucially – it will place the burden of making up the shortfall on those who are meant to be helped in the headline figures brought out today – namely the carers of the disabled!
By community care & welfare advisor Pete Donohue