MPs urged to make reform of adult social care a top priority

The fact that more and more people are living longer, coupled with advances in medical science in treating life-limiting conditions, has created a ticking timebomb at the heart of adult social care.

Now MPs are being urged by the Local Government Association to ‘stop ducking the issue’ and make reform of adult social care a top priority.

Currently, Dorset County Council spends a massive 44 per cent of its overall budget on providing adult and community services to around four per cent of the county’s adult population – just over 12,000 people.

It is anticipating this rising to 50 per cent in the next few years.

The Borough of Poole spends 38 per cent of its £111m budget on adult social care on around 2.8 per cent of the borough’s adult population – around 4,000 people. This cost is expected to increase by £3m a year over the next three years.

And Bournemouth Borough Council spends 34.6 per cent of its budget on adult social care for 4,977 service users – around 3.6 per cent of the town’s adult population. Generally, residential homes are the biggest cost, followed by home care.

Eileen Dunnachie, service director for community care services at Bournemouth council, said it was good news that more people were now living into their 80s and beyond and that many disabled people also had longer life expectancies.

But she said the Government now needed to reform the adult social care system so it could cope with a growing number of people requiring support.

“I think we were all hoping for something a bit more concrete in the Queen’s Speech about how the Government is planning on tackling this growing pressure,” she said.

“We do need some action quickly on this. While in the local area we have a higher proportion of people aged over 85 than most other parts of the country, this is a national problem.

“There is potential for this to be quite expensive for the Government to resolve but we do need them to do something.

“I think the commitment is there but in the current financial position, they are struggling to work out how it can be done.

“There’s no dissent about the problem it’s just working out the best way of tackling it that seems to be difficult at the minute.

“The council is committed to adult social care and not cutting services but clearly it’s difficult to find additional money.”

Debbie Ward, director of adult and community services at Dorset County Council, agreed and said: “We cannot just carry on funding it in the way that we do – we are not free at the point of delivery like the National Health Service is and we end up with postcode issues.

“We have three local authorities in Dorset – Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset – and the service delivery will be different for different client groups.

“Nationally we are saying to government we need to look at alternative financial solutions.

“It’s a growing issue. The demographics across Dorset mean it’s a challenging issue for us.

“A lot of people retire into the county. That’s very positive, many of them really contribute to communities, but they get to a stage when they can’t and then there are the care costs.”

Cllr Peter Adams, Poole’s cabinet member for adult social care, said they were expecting the number of over-90s to increase threefold by 2025.

“Once you get to 90, there are not many people that don’t require some kind of assistance,” he said.

“Probably around 4,000 households out of the 42,000 households in Poole now require some kind of council support, that’s one in ten.

“But all in all, we don’t look at this negatively. The UK is a very caring society and we have to keep the level of care as high as possible. We are determined to maintain services.”

In a bid to keep standards up, Poole is increasing its expenditure on social care, investing a further £2m this year and earmarking extra cash to spend on working with the voluntary sector and providing an advocacy service for vulnerable people.

But with council budgets being squeezed, the funding increase puts other services under even greater pressure.

Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the LGA, said: “Reform of adult social care is one of the biggest challenges this country is facing and none of us can keep ducking the issue.

“We can’t dodge the fact that the cost of social care already takes up more than 40 per cent of council budgets.

“Yet councils, who are already facing an estimated £1billion reduction in social care budgets, will see almost £2billion a year added to the annual cost of care by 2015, because of our ageing population.”

THE last review of the adult social care system concluded last year, when the Commission on Funding of Care and Support made recommendations for a new funding system.

The Dilnot report highlighted that the current funding system is hard to understand, often unfair and unsustainable.

People are left exposed to potentially catastrophic care costs with no way to protect themselves.

Their recommendations included: l Imposing a cap on the amount an individual would have to pay towards their social care. Their recommendation was that this cap should be set at £35,000. After the cap is reached, individuals would be eligible for full state support.

l The means-tested threshold, above which people are liable for their full care costs, should be increased from £23,250 to £100,000.

l All those who enter adulthood with a care and support need should be eligible for free state support immediately rather than being subjected to a means test.

It is estimated this would cost the State around £1.7billion.

Seaview Day Centre users give their views

Josephine Penn, 70, attends Seaview in Poole three days a week. She said: “I really look forward to it.

“Facilities like this are so important, older people mix with younger people and that makes you happy and content.

“I would say to the Government come down and see what is going on.

“Meet the people that are here, they can then get an insight into what’s going on.”

Mike Drew, attends Seaview five days a week. He said: “I like the company, every day’s different.

“My message to the Government is make sure you keep funding it, it’s too important not to. I have good friends and good food here, it’s a good place to be.”