Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FROM BED TO WORSE Care crisis threatens fresh chaos in hospitals
42,000 bed days lost to lack of social services
National Commission on how to fund the care revolution
End to 15-minute and shorter visits by carers
Creation of a National Care System alongside the NHS Appointment of a Minister for the Elderly SOME 400,000 fewer people are getting social care after Tory cuts of around 40% forced councils to tighten up eligibility criteria.
The number of pensioners who will be looked after is to rise from 657,000 in 2015 to 1.2 million by 2040, Government figures predict.
The social care bill will rise from £7.2billion to £18.7billion.
budgets by this Tory Government.” Many of the 140,000 days lost in July were due to short staffing, with patients having to wait for an available medic to deliver “non-acute care” before they can be discharged.
Some 11,000 were a combination of social and medical care shortfalls.
The Local Government Association urged the Tories to produce their long-awaited Green Paper for reform. A spokesman said: “With people living longer, increases in costs and decreases in funding, adult social care is at breaking point. It needs to be put on an equal footing with the health service.”
By 2021 there will be a 30,000 shortfall in care home places, said Sally Copley of the Alzheimer’s Society, adding: “Already there’s not enough care to go around.”
The cost to the NHS of one extra bed day in hospital is estimated at £312 – compared with an average £91 a day for a residential care home.
The total cost of bed blocking has been put at £3billion a year.
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Delays attributable to adult social care have reduced by 43% since February last year.”
It said it will set out its social care reform plans in the coming months.