Care providers deprived of necessary funding

The Independent Care Group has said that social care has again been deprived of the funding lifeline it needs as the NHS receives £20 billion funding boost.

Whilst investment in the NHS is welcome, care providers have expressed disappointment that the funding boost for NHS in England has not been accompanied by more funding for social care, despite new figures from local authority social care directors revealing growing closure of care homes.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has recently revealed that councils in England are continuing to see care homes and homecare providers closing. Their figures show that, from 152 councils, 34 had seen one homecare provider close, 12 had seen two operators close, one had seen three and one four. In total, 65 homecare providers had closed and some 44 councils had had homecare contracts handed back to them by homecare providers.

Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, said: "Obviously the extra funding for the NHS, if it is confirmed, is very welcome, but the Secretary of State has been very clear that at the moment it isn't being matched by more money for social care and we are left, once again, waiting for this Green Paper.

"Figures from ADASS show a deepening of the crisis in social care provision but yet once again, no action is being taken to help the sector. An extra £5 billion a year for the NHS sounds very positive, but when you think that it is currently costing the NHS £3 billion a year to keep older people in hospital beds because there is no social care provision for them, you can see that the maths simply doesn't add up any more and we have to address the funding shortfall in social care. Some 1.2 million people are currently living without the care they need. That is a disgrace and it is only going to get worse."