4.3 million older people are living in local authority areas where a new study has warned that there is not enough social care capacity to meet their needs – and one third of councils expect the situation to get worse over the next year.
Coram Family and Childcare’s “Older People’s Care Survey 2018” paints a bleak picture of the social care landscape. Only 51 per cent of councils reported having enough home care provision available to meet local needs, while only 42 per cent were satisfied with having capacity to provide for more complex care needs – such as dementia.
And even the present situation appears to be impossible to maintain for long. Large parts of the care sector are “unlikely to be sustainable at the current rates of local authorities pay”, the report warns – meaning that cash-strapped councils or service users’ families will have to pay more.
Self-funders are already paying on average 13 per cent more for their care than local authorities.
Megan Jarvie, head of Coram Family and Childcare, said: “Fixing our care system is an opportunity to support older people and their families to lead happier, healthier lives and to reduce the strain on the NHS.”
Chris Knight of report co-spnsor Legal & General’s Retail Retirement Division, warned: “At the moment there is too much confusion about how people find the right long-term care and how much people have to pay from their own pocket. We want to see a system of long-term care that is predictable and fair.”
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