"Councils have now reduced the average number of delayed transfers of care days attributed to social care since June 2017 by 40 per cent."
Responding to the latest delayed transfers of care figures published today by NHS England, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said:
“Councils have now reduced the average number of delayed transfers of care days attributed to social care since June 2017 by 40 per cent.
“To help reduce pressures on the NHS, adult social care needs to be put on an equal footing with the health service and councils need urgent funding to invest in effective prevention work to reduce the need for people to be admitted to hospital in the first place. This is why the LGA has launched its own adult social care green paper to kick-start a desperately-needed debate following the delay of the Government’s green paper.
“To help tackle this, the Government needs to address immediate pressures and plug the funding gap facing adult social care which is set to exceed £3.5 billion by 2025, just to maintain existing standards of care, while latest figures show that councils in England receive 1.8 million new requests for adult social care a year – the equivalent of nearly 5,000 a day.”
Notes to editors
- The LGA’s green paper consultation is available here. The consultation will run for eight weeks from 31 July. The LGA will respond to the findings in a further publication in the autumn, which will be used to influence the Government’s own expected green paper, forthcoming Autumn Budget for 2019/20 and Spending Review.
- Recent surveys by the LGA show that 96 per cent of councils and lead members believe there is a major funding problem with adult social care; 89 per cent said taxation must be part of the long-term solution to funding it, and that 87 per cent of the public support more funding to plug the significant funding gap in the sector.
- The latest delayed transfers of care figures for June 2018 are available here.
- Since June 2017, delays due to social care have fallen by 40 per cent, while delays due to the NHS have fallen by 14 per cent.
'The lives we want to lead'
The LGA green paper for adult social care and wellbeing
Adult social care and support matters. High quality social care and support helps people live the life they want to live. It helps bind our communities, it sustains our NHS and it provides essential economic value to our country.