Long readSocial care 360
Updated with 2018/19 data, our 360 review outlines and analyses 20 key trends in adult social care in England over recent years. Using a variety of publicly-available data, it provides a uniquely rounded – ‘360 degree’ – view of the sector.
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We see on a daily basis older people struggling to survive in an increasingly complex and inadequate system that in spite of the rhetoric often leaves vulnerable people neglected and at risk.
It surely is the responsibility of Government to support the most vulnerable in society and not to farm it out to private providers, who are often not employing people with the right skills because they are paying such low wages/terms of conditions. Also what happened to preventative care?
Then there are the older people stuck in hospital because there isn't a care package to get them discharged. This impacts hugely on older people themselves and the NHS; who are also teetering on a precipice.
As a provider in the North East, one clear fault in the system identified in the report is the complete illogicality of basing a funding system for social care, not on need, but on house values and business rates. Social care is a people-business and we all have to pay at least the same National Minimum Wage, so how can we have such huge variations in the amounts that we are paid as care providers.
I would call on the government to fund social care at a national level (with local management to maintain quality), with national rates for care. This will start to move us away from the two tier system identified in the report.
Thank you Kings Fund for bringing the issues to the public attention. We all need to make sure that the politicians read it and do something about it before the system falls apart completely.
evidence by organisations like the Kings Fund that the provision of
healthcare in the UK is in need of urgent debate regarding its future.
I was born in the 1930s and I was privileged to grow up in a time when
people of vision created the NHS and Welfare State which have kept
the people of this country healthy for over 60 years,and I passionately
believe the NHS should remain an example of the best of public service
in the UK.The fact that a healthy population will live longer and in turn
place added demands on our services seems not to be taken seriously
by any political party,as we see by the present dire state of social care,
and unless this is addressed urgently,thing will only get worse.
The problems in our health service can be resolved,but only if the people
of the UK support the principle of a public service for all funded by the
taxpayer, and with politicians of all parties putting aside their idealogical
prejudice towards public services and bringing passion and vision to
the debate.
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