Million more elderly outside care system than before financial crash
Million more elderly outside care system than before financial crash
The full impact of rationing of elderly care is exposed in new figures showing that the number of older people outside the system has surged by more than one million since the onset of the financial crisis.
At a time when the number of people past retirement age has been growing faster than at any point in history, the numbers receiving any help from the state for their everyday care needs has dropped sharply.
According to figures collated by the charity Age UK, the proportion of the retired population of England receiving care has fallen by a third in the last five years.
It provides a stark illustration of how, despite efforts by councils to shield care for the elderly and disabled from the full impact of austerity cuts, existing services are being rationed to all but those with the most severe needs.
Councils have seen their overall budgets slashed by almost 30 per cent since the Coalition came to power in an effort to reduce the national deficit.
They have responded by squeezing spending on care services – ranging from help with basic tasks such as washing and dressing for those living at home to full nursing care – by about a fifth, or £2.7 billion, over the last three years.
While they have tried to avoid shutting down services, in all but a handful of areas only those people classed as being at the highest levels of need now qualify for support with their care, even before financial tests are applied.
The number of people over the age of 65 in England leapt from 8.3 million to 9.1 million during the last five years.
Yet, the figures obtained by Age UK, show that in the same period the number of people receiving any form of social care fell from 1.2 million to just 890,000 this year.
The proportion of older people receiving care fell by a third, from almost 15 per cent of all over 65s to less than a tenth.
Five years ago there were 7.1 million older people who received no care, this year there are 8.2 million – 1.1 million more.
Michelle Mitchell, director general of Age UK said: “The percentage of the population receiving social care has fallen by a third in the last four years.
“This is an extraordinary drop.
“It demonstrates the scale of the social care crisis facing the country: because the reduction is not due to falling need, but rather to ever tighter restrictions on who qualifies for funded social care support.
“Inadequate social care provision not only condemns many older people to a more miserable and lonely existence but all too often ends in a crisis, resulting in unnecessary hospital admissions and distress for the older person and their loved ones.”
Social care chiefs say they have achieved much of their spending cuts through so-called “efficiencies”.
They have emphasised that this includes measures such as negotiating cheaper prices from suppliers but it has also involved trimming cash from services seen as a lower priority.
But a recent report, compiled for council chiefs, illustrated starkly how the measures are already having a dramatic effect on some people’s everyday lives.
For example, the number of older people in England receiving meals delivered to their home has halved in just two years.
Meanwhile the number attending day care centres is down by more than a quarter since 2011 while almost 10 per cent fewer people receive home care.
