City Faced With £7.5m Cash Deficit For Care Of Elderly

Edinburgh City council chiefs have said they faced a £7.5 million funding gap for free personal care for the elderly. They said other services to older people were suffering because of the cash shortfall, with longer waits for home helps, frozen meals and aids and adaptations. And Kingsley Thomas, the council’s leader for health and social care, claimed the funding formula that determined how much each council received for free personal care put Edinburgh at a disadvantage.

Recent official figures have revealed that nearly 1600 pensioners in the Edinburgh were not receiving the care they were entitled to because they were still waiting to be assessed for the payments of up to £145 a week for help with washing, dressing and eating.

A report by the Scottish Parliament’s health committee showed Edinburgh received £17.4m a year from the Executive to pay for free personal care, but the figure for how much the city council spent providing that care was not available at that stage.

Now the council has revealed its spending on the flagship policy is almost £25m a year, with the £7.6m shortfall having to be found from elsewhere in the budget for services to the elderly.

Councillor Thomas said: “We support the policy of free personal care and we are all looking to improve the service for older people. But after a few years operating the policy, it appears in Edinburgh’s case it is badly under-funded.” He said it meant delays in providing older people with home helps, frozen meals, day centre places or aids and adaptations to their homes.

He added: “The shortfall is putting pressure on mainstream services for older people.”

Cllr Thomas also highlighted the problem with the funding formula, saying: “The way services for older people are funded is based on levels of deprivation. Edinburgh loses out because we have a higher proportion of better-off pensioners. Services to older people in Edinburgh can be more expensive. There are higher care home fees and higher costs for employing staff.”

Tom Ponton, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman on health and social care on the council, said the Executive never gave proper funding for new policies the councils were expected to carry out.

He said: “The Labour administration in Edinburgh should be going back to the Health Minister and saying: ‘If you want us to implement this policy, you have to give us the money.’

“There are great areas of deprivation in Edinburgh and they should change their formula for assessing us.”

The Scottish Executive claimed the figures quoted for its funding of free personal care failed to take into account the money it had always given to councils for those who qualified for free care under the old means-tested system.

A spokeswoman also said councils had been asked to estimate how much they needed to implement the policy and that was the amount they were given.