Councils and NHS ‘must work as partners on social care’

The health service and local government must work as partners on social care in the face of a spending squeeze, the NHS Confederation said today.

Jo Webber, deputy director of policy, called for the NHS and local government to join forces in a bid to get “the maximum bang for every buck”.

Experts have expressed fears that elderly people unable to access social care services following cuts will turn to the NHS for help.

Overall, health spending will rise from £104 billion this year to £114 billion by the end of the next four years.

Social care will receive an extra £1 billion a year taken from NHS funds as part of an overall £2 billion of extra funding every year by 2014/15.

But this is set against a backdrop of 26% cuts in central government funding to local councils over the next four years.

And, while health spending will be protected in the immediate future, the NHS is still expected to find “efficiency savings” of £15 billion to £20 billion.

Speaking in Manchester at the National Children and Adult Services Conference, Ms Webber said: “We are concerned about the impact of the current public spending round on social care.

“Many people in local government are also worried about meeting the costs of the care needed to prevent vulnerable people from ending up sick, injured and in hospital.

“But the challenge of difficult financial times is one we simply have to prove equal to.

“The answer will lie in ever closer working between local government and the NHS, a willingness to consider pooled budgets, innovations like telecare and the savings and improved co-ordination which personalised budgets can bring.

“None of this is going to be easy.

“This winter is likely to bring the first real test of the impact this spending squeeze is going to have on the vulnerable and elderly, and the services they rely on.

“Simply shunting costs from one part of the system will prove to be a totally inadequate response to the challenge of caring for elderly people.

“The only way we get the maximum bang for every buck on behalf of service users will be to work closer together and squeeze as much value as possible from the money available for social care.”