Cuts To Agency Staff At Care Homes After £3m Overspend

Care homes in Edinburgh have been told to cut their agency staff bill as council bosses attempt to claw back a projected £3 million overspend. High sickness levels among council staff and rising numbers of elderly people who need specialist care in residential homes have increased the need to employ agency carers. A soaring number of profoundly disabled young people who have left school this year, and whose care bill has been transferred to Edinburgh City Council’s health and social care department, is also adding to costs.

The department’s total gross budget for this financial year is £189m and the predicted £3m overspend was detailed in a recent council report.

Peter Gabbitas, director of health and social care at the city council, said: “If you look at this time last year, they were predicting a similar level of overspend but we managed to meet all our financial targets.

“In terms of balancing the books, some of it is about really understanding the initial data and seeing how much of it we really agree with and how much is down to pessimism in the forecasting. Then we set targets for certain areas and ways we can reduce the level of overspend and pull that back in. Some of it will be around schemes to improve the absence levels, to reduce some of the costs of agency staff while in other areas there are efficiencies to be made.”

He added: “I think we will need to reduce agency and overtime spending but I don’t see us cutting back on staff posts as such.”

Mr Gabbitas said the growing number of people over the age of 85 has resulted in greater numbers of staff being drafted in to cater for their individual care needs. More elderly people are also choosing to remain in their own home under the watchful eye of home carers.

Help the Aged spokesman Lindsay Scott said that the problem was set to get worse because the population was aging and councils and the Scottish Executive were failing to look at the problem realistically. He added that gaps in services were being plugged by the voluntary sector which would not be able to cope indefinitely.

He said: “I don’t think councils are fully prepared for how much the aging population is going to cost them. There’s no point in the Executive and local authorities fighting about this – they need to sit down and start from scratch and come up with some realistic projections about what the costs are going to be.”

There is also increasing pressure on the health and social care department from the high number of young people with profound disabilities, who are no longer in the care of children’s services.

Last year, there were 12 young adults with serious physical and mental disabilities in Edinburgh whose costs were transferred from the children and families department to health and social care, after reaching the age of 16.

This year, the care of 100 youngsters has been transferred to the council’s health budget, partly due to improved treatment leading to more severely disabled children surviving into adulthood.

Although an additional £1m was provided, the department is still struggling to cope.

Councillor Kate MacKenzie, the Conservative health spokeswoman at the council, said: “It’s a huge worry to me. I really feel health and social care is under huge pressure and I feel they should get a big chunk of the council budget. It’s very important. There are other departments where money is not being well spent and I believe we need to have a rethink so that we can care for these people as e should be.”