Social Care

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful and heartfelt comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes).

Today is Unison’s SOS—save our services—day of action, so I join it in calling on the Government to ensure that social care is properly funded, so that people in this country can be properly looked after.

In the past six years, the largest share of cuts has fallen on local government. Given that councils spend a third of their budget on social care, the Government will have known from the very start that social care would be one of the biggest casualties of their spending programme.

The budget of North East Lincolnshire Council has been cut by more than £70 million since 2010, with a further £7 million of cuts to be made by next year, causing spending on adult social care in my constituency to fall by 20% since 2010. People have been forced to live in completely unacceptable conditions, because there is not enough funding to provide adequate care.

I know of wheelchair-bound adults living in a care home in Great Grimsby who have been waiting for over two years for the button that automatically opens the door out of their flat to be fixed. At the moment, until a carer comes to visit, they are effectively trapped in their own home. That is an unacceptable position to leave people in, but it is just one example of the state of social care today.

The council has had to limit access to adaptations by increasing the thresholds for accessing them and capping spending. Disabled and elderly people are therefore often left in unsuitable housing. Understandably, that is also hugely frustrating for carers who are trying their best to look after people in inadequate conditions, while having continually to fight the council and care providers for the improvements they need.

A constituent who cares for his adult son was told by occupational health about six months ago that his home needed the back door widened and a ramp and lift installed. He feels as though he is being deliberately fobbed off, rather than getting the help he needs to look after his son properly. It is as uncomfortable for the son to live in those conditions as it is frustrating for the father to be unable to look after him properly.

Today, the Communities and Local Government Committee took evidence from family and friend carers who save the state so much money. One issue that was raised was the disconnect between the NHS and local authorities at the point of discharge from hospital. There were reports of families feeling abandoned when discharge occurs, with very limited support being accessible and no single point of contact or dedicated service to guide people through the options available to them and their families. That heightens the risk of readmission to hospital for many of those patients, costing the state even more money.

The carers spoke of the neglect of their own physical and mental health, with their overriding concern being for their loved ones. Respite that had previously been offered is ending. We heard the example today of two hours of respite being provided a week. That does not seem like an awful lot, but it was a lifeline to the women who came and gave evidence. That was provided by a local charity and funded by the local authority. It is now going to end because of cuts being made to and by the local authority.

We also heard about a looming crisis in intergenerational care, with a gap of hundreds of thousands of carers predicted over the next 10 years. The pressure on social care services provided by the state is only set to increase. As we heard at Prime Minister’s Question Time today from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), there are also problems with dementia and Alzheimer’s services.

The social care precept is not the way to solve this problem. As we have heard, the areas with the highest demand for care are often those where the precept will raise the least. Furthermore, the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), claimed earlier this month that the additional funds raised through the precept have been “entirely swallowed up” in higher wages for carers. Although I am glad that carers are being paid more, albeit still not a proper living wage, councils are therefore unable to allocate any of the new funds to improving care.

When the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) announced the social care precept this time last year, he said:

“The truth we need to confront is that many local authorities will not be able to meet growing social care needs unless they have new sources of funding.”

Although the Government have accepted the need to better fund social care, they still need to find that new money if the growing demand for care is to be met. This is not only about supporting people who need that support in their old age or because of a disability; it affects us all. As the then Chancellor also said last year:

“The health service cannot function effectively without good social care.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1363-64.]

Failing to fund social care properly means that patients are forced to remain in hospital for weeks longer than they need to, blocking beds for new patients who need them and pushing up hospital waiting times. Meanwhile, every day the patient is kept in hospital costs the NHS far more than caring for them in a suitable environment would.