‘Social workers forced to ration care over funds’
Report describes ‘sickening’ situation
SOCIAL WORKERS are facing “intense pressure” to ration social care for some of the most vulnerable people in society, a report has claimed.
Local authorities are “scrabbling” to fulfil their duties to provide care to the most vulnerable with “grossly insufficient resources”, according to the Care and Support Alliance – a coalition of charities and other organisations.
Staff have described being forced to reduce care packages for elderly or disabled people, or those with mental health needs, because of budget pressures or because local authority support is more restricted.
A survey of 469 social workers and other professionals in England who undertake care assessments – which determine whether people are eligible for social care – found that many have “grave concerns” about care being withdrawn.
Some described people being placed in hospital or care homes due to a reduction in support in their own homes.
One worker said: “I had to reduce the care package for three brothers who live together. Each has a mental health problem, physical or learning disability.
“They had a substantial care package for 15 years. It kept them safe from financial abuse and enabled them to live in the community.
“After reducing the care package two of them went into residential care and died. The other was admitted to hospital with dehydration and hypothermia.”
Another added: “A person with hoarding issues and a tendency to eat rotten food had their shopping and housework call cut, resulting in an admission to hospital with food poisoning.” In the poll, conducted on the Community Care Magazine website, 69 per cent of respondents said they felt expected to reduce care packages because of cost pressures in their local authority. Meanwhile 37 per cent said they believed they could not get people the care they needed.
One worker said: “Care packages are not getting agreed by the funding panel. I am having to submit reduced care packages to the panel in the hope that some support will get funded, as opposed to none.”
The authors of the report wrote: “Some people have been put at risk of serious harm and many more subjected to acute anxiety and distress. It is also clear that in some places the law is being at best ‘bent’, at worst systematically breached, as local authorities scrabble to fulfil their legal duties with grossly insufficient resources.
“This report shows that the end results include officials in some local areas coming up with ever more creative and sometimes frankly absurd ways of restricting the ways in which precious social care funding can be spent by individuals in need of support.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “This is the first time that England’s social workers have spoken out in such numbers, blowing the whistle on just what a drastic state of decline social care is now in.”