'Unproductive' elderly left to die without care

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Elderly care system in ‘calamitous, rapid decline’ warn charities
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11358034/Elderly-care-system- in-calamitous-rapid-decline-warn-charities.html

By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor
8:30AM GMT 21 Jan 2015
Almost 400,000 fewer elderly people in England receiving care than in the middle of the last decade

Almost 400,000 fewer older people in England now receive any form of state supported care than before the recession despite rapid increases in the elderly population, a stark new study shows.

Analysis of NHS figures by the charity Age UK, highlights how a 40 per cent slump in the proportion receiving support – ranging from help with basic tasks in their own home to full residential care – since the middle of the last decade.

Despite efforts by councils to shield social care from the full force of spending cuts and a Government decision to divert cash from the NHS, total spending on social care has also fallen by 14 per cent or £1.1 billion in the last three years.

Only just over nine per cent of over 65s now receive social care, compared with more than 15 per cent less than a decade ago.

Councils have responded to cuts by applying increasingly strict criteria in an attempt to balance the books, effectively rationing care by concentrating on those in the most dire need.

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The Age UK study, which draws on data supplied by the NHS and councils, shows that the numbers receiving support to live in care homes or nursing homes have fallen by only a few percentage points other forms of care have contracted sharply.

The number receiving state-backed care in their own homes is down by almost a third since 2011 and day care places for older people have collapsed in the same period – a 67 per cent fall to just over 59,000 places.

Other important lifelines for older people such as meals-on-wheels are also disappearing in some areas, down by 64 per cent across England in three years.

“This devastating scorecard speaks for itself and it lays bare the fact that our state-funded social care system is in calamitous, quite rapid decline,” said Caroline Abrahams, director of Age UK.

“The more preventive services like meals-on-wheels and day care are being especially hard hit, leaving the system increasingly the preserve of older people in the most acute need, storing up big problems for the future.

“Hundreds of thousands of older people who need social care are being left high and dry.

“The lucky ones have sufficient funds to buy in some support, or can rely on the goodwill of family, neighbours and friends. But there are many who are being left to struggle on entirely alone.”

Richard Hawkes, chairman of the Care and Support Alliance, a coalition of more than 75 charities, said: “These alarming figures reveal the scale of the crisis facing the social care system.

“Every day, our organisations hear horror stories of people who struggle to get the support they need.

“One in three people have experience of the social care system.”

Stephen Burke, Director of GoodCareGuide.co.uk, the TripAdvisor-style website for the care industry, added: “This report confirms the growing crisis in care for older people.

“As a result pressures are increasing on the NHS and more older people are being admitted to hospital and can't be discharged. Better funding for care is central to a better NHS.”






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