George Osborne must get a grip on the care home crisis
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Version 0 of 1. In July the government announced a five-year delay in the implementation of the cap on care costs (Tories to break manifesto vow to cap care costs, 18 July). The cap promised to end the fears of many people that if they developed care needs they could face unlimited costs for vital support they were unable to live without. A limit on the total amount anyone would have to spend on care would have provided reassurance to hundreds of thousands of older and disabled people with long-term needs for care and support, and peace of mind to their carers. In the years since the cap was first adopted as government policy, cuts in funding have put the care system into crisis. Half a million people have been cut out of the system, and two in five services are now rated as “inadequate” or “requires improvement” by the regulator. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. It was in this context that many people said in July that the decision to defer the cap was the right one, since it would save £6bn over five years which could be used to shore up the failing care system. For the government to renege on a manifesto promise yet still allow the crisis in the care system to worsen is untenable. If the spending review does not announce that all the money saved by deferring the cap will be redirected to reversing the decline in the care system, we consider this will be a betrayal of the tens of thousands of people who would have benefited from the cap and now face potentially unlimited costs of care.Vicky McDermott Chair, Care and Support AllianceSheila Scott Chair, Care Providers AllianceRhidian Hughes Chief executive, Voluntary Organisations Disability GroupLisa Lenton England director of the Association for Real ChangeCaroline Abrahams Charity director, Age UK • The extraordinary fact revealed in Guy Hands’ analysis of the care home crisis (Care homes boss Hands loses faith in Thatcherite thinking, 7 November) is the practice of “cross-subsidisation”, whereby residents paying full cost from their savings are actually subsidising those receiving the restricted support of local authorities. Guy Hands is quite right this is not what Mrs Thatcher would have intended! There needs to be a firm commitment from government to create adequate and fair financing of care homes.Roger MissingSwanley, Kent • Guy Hands, the boss of the private equity company that owns 470 care homes, is struggling to make a profit due to the squeeze on local authority budgets. He and his wife are worth an estimated £250m and are tax exiles in Guernsey. If they and others like them paid full taxes in this country, maybe there wouldn’t be a care funding crisis.Mike ParrBath • As councils nervously await this month’s spending review, there is little comfort to be found in the news that the Department for Communities and Local Government has jumped to be one of the first to accept George Osborne’s massive cuts of 30% over the next four years (Painful choices: Whitehall staff likely to bear brunt as axe falls, 10 November). Local councils have already lost over 40% of their funding over the last five years, with the most deprived areas hit hardest. That’s despite the fact that it’s a false economy, with cuts to early intervention only increasing the pressure on the NHS. Even the Conservative-run Local Government Association has warned that another round of funding cuts would devastate local services and harm the most vulnerable in society. In my constituency of Hornsey & Wood Green, the local council has seen their resources slashed by £117m since 2010 with another £70m still to come. That sort of money can’t be taken away without people feeling it, whether it’s children’s centres, libraries and rubbish collections or elderly and disabled people requiring essential social care. Councils provide so many of the day-to-day services we rely on, yet they’re being placed in an impossible situation, with resources cut to the bone as demand for their services grows. The chancellor can talk all he likes about devolution, but if further council cuts go ahead local services face a chilling future. Catherine West MPLabour, Hornsey & Wood Green • Osborne skews spending towards the elderly (Report, 10 November) because Tory election strategy calculated that as the “grey” vote was the one most likely to keep them in power it should be rewarded. Thus, as the ONS said recently, the reason living standards are now returning to pre-recession levels is because of the rising incomes of retirees, whose spending power has been protected by devices such as the triple lock. But October’s hastily buried official report by the Government Actuary’s Department estimated that the government spends an extra £6bn a year protecting pensioners’ incomes and warned that the cost of doing so in future years could spiral further compared to just increasing state pensions in line with earnings. In effect, subsidies for the old such as the triple lock consume money that could have been used to fund schemes such as tax credits or building affordable housing.David MurrayWallington, Surrey |