Social Care — House of Commons, 2018-04-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for providing me with a nice segue. On Monday, Paul Robinson, the chief executive of her council—Tory Worcestershire County Council—said that "there comes a point where cost-cutting can’t go any further—there has to be a solution" He is right too, but we have yet to hear a Minister even acknowledge that this crisis in social care funding in local government is as serious as it is—and it is a crisis that has its roots in Downing Street. Let us be clear: austerity and cuts in local government budgets have been a political choice by this Government since 2010 It gets worse. Behind every statistic that I can quote are real people working in the service, real people receiving services, real people requiring services, and families worried about how to support their loved ones. Funding cuts, poor pay, recruitment problems and a lack of support for the sector have hit the quality and availability of adult social care support. In the past year, one in five local authorities has seen more of its care homes rated "inadequate" or "requires improvement". In some areas, as many as one in two care homes is now rated inadequate For some of the most vulnerable, even gaining access to any form of support is difficult. Vulnerable older people with conditions such as dementia and motor neurone disease are being denied support because there is a postcode lottery for treatment. According to Which?, where people live can make them 25 times more likely to receive social care support. South Reading paid care costs for 8.7 patients per 50,000 people, while Salford funded 220.3 per 50,000. In Stockport, people are nearly seven times less likely to receive the funding than those just a few miles away in Salford, and patients in Richmond are more than three times more likely to receive it than those in Ealing Ministers cannot hide the terms of a social care levy behind flexibilities on council tax. They know, as we know, that in the areas with the greatest need, a small increase in council tax will never make up the shortfall in funding caused by cuts in grants from central Government, which have been slashed by an average of 50% since 2010. That has exacerbated inequality, as poorer areas, which often have many needs, have struggled to raise the funding that they so desperately need. I will use a local example for the Minister. Tameside, one of two local authorities that cover my constituency, will face a £33 million funding gap in adult social care in the next three years, yet a 1% increase on council tax raises just over £700,000—never, ever enough to plug that gap The news that Allied Healthcare, one of the biggest providers of home care, has fallen into financial difficulty shows the impact that is being felt in the sector. The fact that 150 councils rely on Allied Healthcare should send shivers down the spines of Ministers. We got no real answers or any assurances from the Government that they were taking these developments seriously or putting in place emergency contingency measures to ensure that we do not see a repeat of the Carillion collapse There are four reasons that people now give for their dissatisfaction with social care: staff shortages, long waiting times, a lack of funding, and Government reforms. That is coming not just from the Opposition; the same concerns that we have raised today are being raised in living rooms and care homes across England. The Government have a duty to respond, and I commend our motion to the House.