MEASURES announced in today’s Autumn Statement will make it harder to provide care to older, vulnerable and disabled adults, the Independent Care Group warned.
The ICG said the sector had been left out in the cold as the Chancellor gave with one hand but took away with the other.
The ICG welcomed an extra £600m for social care and an increase in Carers Allowance announced by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But it was dismayed after an increase in employer’s National Insurance contributions and a rise in the National Living Wage heaped pressure on care providers.
Those measures may well result in more providers quitting the sector at a time when 2m people can’t get the care they need and social care cannot help the NHS to lower waiting lists.
The ICG had sent an open letter to Rachel Reeves urging her to support rather than harm social care.
But ICG Chair Mike Padgham said: “That plea fell on deaf ears and there was very little cheer for social care in today’s Autumn Statement as it was once again left out in the cold.
“The £600m on social care is welcome but by the time it is distributed to 152 local authorities and shared with children’s services it will have little or no impact.
“Any extra funding that might reach providers will be wiped off instantly by the increases in National Insurance and minimum pay which will together heap further pressure on social care providers.
“For some they may well be the final straw, all at a time when we should be growing social care provision to meet the needs of 2m people who currently can’t get the care they need.”
In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor increased employer’s National Insurance by 1.2% and lowered the threshold at which employers have to pay the tax on a worker’s earnings, from £9,100 to £5,000. She also confirmed that the National Living Wage will go up to £12.21 an hour and the National Minimum Wage for those aged 18 to 20 up to £10 an hour next spring.
Mr Padgham added: “As a labour-intensive sector, the last thing social care needed today was an increase in employee costs and, through the rise in National Insurance and the lowering of the NI threshold, that is what we got.
“For a lot of providers this will place existential pressure on them and could well push some out of business, unless it is matched by extra funding to those who commission care and there was little sign of that.
“We all want to pay our staff better – we are going through a recruitment crisis, so need to make the sector competitive. But, again, raising the minimum wage will put more and more financial worry on to care providers, unless we get better funding into social care.
“Those who commission care, like local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, have not paid providers the true price of delivering care for many years, which has brought social care to the sorry position it is today. The extra £600m announced today will not address that and the Government has missed an opportunity to be bold and properly invest in social care.”
He also warned that the extra £22bn for the NHS would not ease hospital waiting lists unless it was matched by more support for social care.
“We want to see better funding for the NHS so that we can reduce waiting lists and get the treatment we need, when we need it. And the Government wants to see a movement from hospitals to community and from sickness to prevention, Mr Padgham added. “But to do those things we have to have adequate social care available in the community so that people can be discharged from hospital when they are ready and beds freed up.“With only lip service paid to social care today, that increase in provision is not going to happen and people well enough to be discharged from hospital will be staying right where they are. I would argue that a healthy NHS depends upon healthy social care. The message isn’t getting through, we need to switch resources from the NHS to social care to start making the equation work.”
In his letter to the Chancellor, Mr Padgham said the Government needed to increase rather than decrease the funding it gives to commissioners like local authorities to buy care from providers. And he warned that an increase in National Insurance would hit social care providers and be at odds with the Government’s desire to see more people looked after in their own home. He also argued that the Government must support social care if it is to succeed in its proposals to reform and improve the NHS.