Social Care — House of Commons, 2018-04-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It seems no time since we were discussing this topic in the autumn. There are three groups of people who require social care. The first and the one commonly thought about are the frail elderly. There is expected to be a rise of 25% in those aged 85 and above between 2015 and 2025. By 2030, that proportion will have gone up 63%. Therefore, this requires us to make urgent preparations. Elderly people requiring social care need support and comfort The next group comprises those who are facing the end of life. They want dignity and, if possible, to be at home. If their family is looking after them, they want their family to have respite. The third group, as has already been mentioned in the debate, are younger people with disability. For them, it is the quality of their whole life, their mobility and their ability to participate in society. This last group is expected to rise by 9.2% between 2010 and 2020 The five year forward view for the NHS and the amount of money requested were based on a game-changing approach to public health and a strong increase in social care funding. In actual fact, the opposite has happened and social care has lost almost £5 billion. Age UK says that 1.2 million elderly people have a social care need that is not being met—up 48% since 2010. In England, there has been a 26% drop in local authority-funded patients getting social care—that is 400,000 people —despite an increase in the ageing population One third of the elderly population are looked after by their family. Those carers have been paid tributes here, but they need a bit more than tributes; they need support and, in particular, they need respite, because many of them are literally working all the hours of the week. There will be 2 million carers who are themselves over 65. At the moment, carers’ allowance is only £60 a week; it is not even the same as the jobseeker’s allowance. In Scotland, this is one of the benefits that we now have control over, and it is rising to meet the level of the jobseeker’s allowance. That is little enough tribute to these people who, frankly, are saving the state millions Some 700,000 people were identified by Age UK as getting no help whatsoever. The Green Paper is looking at options in the long term, but the problem is that social care needs funding now, and it is estimated that the gap will be £2 billion by 2020. The social care precept has been identified, allowing local authorities to raise council tax by 2% to 3% over the next few years. That will bring in £1.8 billion, but it will be the richer areas that will be able to raise more money The better care fund has been put forward for the integration of health and social care, which we should all welcome. It is estimated to raise £1.5 billion by 2019-20. The problem is that some of it—£800 million—has been raided from the new homes bonus, and when we are not here talking about social care, people are at the Dispatch Box talking about the lack of housing and the lack of affordable housing. The problem is that if we do not get away from silo thinking, we will never reach a point of health in all policies At the same time, the local authority funding grant will be cut by £6.1 billion by 2019-20, so we are talking about giving with one hand and taking away with the other. As has been touched on, the cuts to local authority funding of social care are causing providers to close. In the first half of 2016, one third of local authorities had at least one home care provider—and half had a care home or nursing home—that closed due to becoming bankrupt. Anyone who has had a relative supported by these services will know how traumatic it is, particularly if it is a residential care home, for someone who may have lived somewhere for years suddenly to be moved to a strange place Perhaps some consideration should be given in the Green Paper to combining health and social care, and to looking at some of the different approaches in order to consider whether it is actually safer to provide social care publicly. In Scotland, we have been increasing the funding into the community in primary care, which will rise to 11% of the health budget, and in mental health, community care and social care. The aim is to rebalance the budget over the coming years to 2021 until half the health budget is going to the community. We have been funding integration joint boards since 2014, and the care, design and planning is by health and social care partnerships. This is already joining up health and social care, so that we do not have the situation that I experienced when I worked in a hospital, with the social care side and the health side bickering over where Mrs Jones would be best served. With integration, we should just be able to work out what is best for Mrs Jones.