Author Archives: Maureen
Use left-over NHS cash to pay for elderly care, say MPs
Left-over cash from NHS budgets should be handed over to local councils to pay for care for the elderly and disabled, according to MPs.
By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor
7:00AM BST 16 Jul 2012
A cross-party group of MPs and peers is calling on the Government to allow money allocated to health but left unspent to be used for social care rather than being simply absorbed back into Treasury funds.
They calculate that less than half of the current annual NHS underspend would be enough to solve the immediate funding crisis in social care.
The call comes in a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Local Government, chaired by the Tory MP Heather Wheeler.
It comes in the week after the Government set out plans to overhaul care for the elderly.
Disability benefit: £16m overpaid to claimants
Disability living allowance is paid to two million people of working age
13 July 2012 Last updated at 11:38
About £16m has been wrongly paid to pensioners on disability living allowance and attendance allowance, the Department of Work and Pensions has said.
The DWP says 1,600 people have been overpaid by £20.55 to £131.50 a week.
The mistake has been uncovered by a DWP Accounting Service audit.
Minister for Disabled People Maria Miller says she will “consider carefully” how to recover the overpayments.
In “a small number of cases” such as terminally ill claimants and others considered too vulnerable, the money may not be reclaimed.
Government announces care and support reforms
The government has announced the biggest reform of the care and support system since 1948
The government has announced the biggest reform of the care and support system since 1948. The White Paper, ‘Caring for our future: reforming care and support’ and the draft Care and Support Bill, also published today, set out how the social care system will be transformed from a service that reacts to crises to one that focuses on prevention and is built around the needs and goals of people.
