News

“A sustainable NHS depends on a sustainable social care system. Instead, the social care system is suffering from long-term underfunding and high vacancy levels across the workforce.”

Joint press release: Local Government Association (LGA) and Think Local Act Personal (TLAP)

Christmas is a time for caring and sharing, and unpaid carers across the country will be continuing to provide care for their loved ones throughout the festive season. Unpaid carers are the backbone of our care system.

National adult social care organisations have come together to call for a co-produced, national workforce strategy alongside action to improve terms and conditions.

The Local Government Association is calling for the scrapping of single word ratings in Care Quality Commission assessments of councils’ adult social care services, following the decision to end single word ratings in Ofsted inspections.

Over recent years, councils have protected adult social care relative to other services. But the scale of the overall funding picture for local government as a whole means adult social care services still face a £3.6 billion funding gap by 2025, just to maintain existing standards of care.

“Councils are committed to ensuring adults of all ages have access to high quality care and support who need it, but rising costs and demand pressures mean incredibly difficult decisions are having to be made about this vital service."

“It is disappointing that so much of the current narrative on social care implies it exists solely to ease pressure on the NHS.”

We need a radical rethink of what we want social care to be and how we can help achieve it.

Councillors from across the country and political spectrum have called on the Government to give greater priority to social care and start committing more resources to it now.