30,000 OAPs dying each year waiting for help from our broken care system
ALMOST 30,000 pensioners die every year waiting for help from the broken social care system, figures show.
Campaigners fear many of those begging for assistance spend their final weeks and months in distress and discomfort because council supply simply cannot meet demand.
Age UK analysed NHS data which shows 28,655 over-65s died waiting for social care in 2022-23 – or 79 deaths a day.
The numbers are broadly similar to those from a year earlier, suggesting no progress.
Caroline Abrahams, Age UK charity director, said: “Good social care makes a big difference whenever it is needed, but never more so than in the last weeks and months of our lives.
Attention
“Social care lacks sufficient funding and, in many places, trained staff, and unless and until we get a government that’s prepared to face up to these problems older people will continue to go to their graves without receiving the social care they are due.”
Councils are responsible for organising and funding support and care for those with moderate or high needs who cannot fund it themselves. They can also arrange care for self-funding individuals who need help. Care is funded by taxpayer cash from central government grants and through council tax, social care precept and business rates.
The NHS said local councils spent £23.7billion on adult social care in 2022-23 – up £1.7billion. However this funding is not usually protected. Only twothirds of 152 councils providing such care are confident of meeting all their legal duties next year, says the Local Government Association. Eight in 10 are to slash spending on services like parks, libraries and leisure. Meanwhile, the number of people aged 85 and over is set to double by 2040. The LGA’s David Fothergill said: “Councils are doing all they can to ensure they meet their duties but many still fear they will not be able to over the coming years.
“Adult social care needs urgent attention. This must be top of the in-tray for any new government.”
Ex-pensions minister Baroness Ros Altmann said: “More and more people are being left languishing without the care they need, unable to look after themselves and with nobody else to look after them either.
“Social care should be a national provision, not left to local authorities who simply cannot raise enough money to pay the rising bills. These people are often unable to complain, nobody listens if they do and the system is the biggest failure of social policy in our lifetimes.”
She said the lack of radical reform, despite legislation and promises to do better, “shames our country”.
Age UK wants the next government to publish a comprehensive plan to reform social care in 18 months, commit to implementing it over five years, with an immediate pay increase for care staff.
The Government said: “Our sympathies are with the families of all those who have died.
“We want to ensure everyone gets the care they need and help even more people to live independently.
“That’s why we have made available up to £8.6billion in additional funding over two years to support adult social care and discharge, enabling local authorities to improve workforce recruitment and retention.
“This financial year, councils in England will receive up to £64.7billion – a 7.5% increase in cash terms on 2023-24.”