With the Chancellor’s Autumns Statement due this week, the directors of specialist property consultants HPC have lent their voices to the increasing calls for additional funding for the care sector.
Ian Wilkie of HPC said, “It seems that we hear the same story repeated every year, with a crisis in the NHS caused by beds being “blocked” by frail elderly residents who could be effectively cared for elsewhere. Annual real term increases in NHS funding have failed to address this issue.” He added, “we are simultaneously hearing leaders in social care crying out for additional funding, which has flat-lined in comparison, in order to sustain a sector which has been put under immense pressure through increased regulatory and fiscal burdens.”
Mr Wilkie suggests that the arithmetic seems to support calls for the funding gap to be addressed. “We know that good quality care can be provided in care homes for around a third of the cost of an NHS hospital bed. It is surely time that we created a functioning link between our health and social care systems in such a way that both sustains our vital social care sector, whilst making budgetary common sense.”
He concluded “we are sure that voices have been sufficiently raised for Philip Hammond to be aware of the issue and hope that he steps up to the plate to deliver a meaningful and practical funding package for social care.”
