Underfunding will make it impossible to meet Care Act legal duties, councils warn
The Care Act will fail unless the Government announces new money for social care, the Local Government Association has claimed.
In a submission to the Treasury ahead of the Spring Budget, the LGA said the continued underfunding left councils facing the prospect of court challenges.
This funding crisis in social care was “threatening the very spirit of the legislation which is about supporting people’s well-being and helping them to stay well and live dignified, independent lives”.
The LGA said that in the absence of extra funding ministers needed to be “honest and upfront” with the public about the limitations of the care and support they could provide.
The Budget submission also urged the Government to set out contingency plans to deal with major failure in the care provider market. A lack of funding has already seen some providers hand contracts back to councils or cease trading altogether, it said.
The LGA warned that a lack of Government action could see:
- “Providers pulling out of the publicly-funded care market or going bust
- Growing unmet basic needs such as getting washed and dressed, or helped out of bed
- Shorter care visits
- Further strain on carers
- An overstretched workforce with an increasingly high turnover
- Greater pressure on GP surgeries and hospitals
- More and more people stranded in hospital unable to leave”.
An inability to support people to stay well and live independent lives “would constitute a failure to meet the very spirit of the Care Act as well as its statutory duties, which could result in judicial review”, the Association argued.
It cited a recent ADASS survey which found ust 8% of directors of adult social care in councils expressing confidence in their capacity to meet the full duties of the Care Act in the coming financial year.
The LGA estimated that the overall funding gap facing social care remains at least £2.6bn by 2020, after the Government failed to announce new money in the Autumn Statement and Local Government Finance Statement.
Chairman of the Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, said: “The Care Act is a really important piece of legislation which the LGA fully supports. But the intentions and the spirit of the Care Act that aims to help people to live well and independently, are in grave danger of falling apart and failing, unless new funding is announced by government for adult social care.
“It is not good enough just to be trying to help someone get washed and dressed. Adult social care is about much more than this. It is about aspiring to help people live their lives to the fullest, and with dignity, not simply just get by. This is the great strength of the Care Act, which unfortunately is now at risk.”
Cllr Seccombe added: “If no new money is urgently announced, then government needs to be honest and upfront with the public about the limitations of the care and support we can provide, and the fact that as a society we will no longer be able to meet the ambitions and objectives of the Care Act.
“The need to inject new money into how we provide care and support for our elderly and vulnerable residents is something which councils, charities, care providers and the NHS are fully united in calling for.
“Genuinely new government funding is now the only way to save the Care Act, and to protect the services caring for our elderly and disabled people and ensure they can enjoy dignified, healthy and independent lives, live in their own community and stay out of hospital for longer, reducing the pressures on the NHS.”
