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.
Carers’ Centre Hull loses its fight to land major £1.5m contract
A CARERS charity has lost its fight to win a major £1.5 million contract.
Carers’ Centre Hull in Prospect Street, city centre, handed over a petition to try to save the centre yesterday, just hours before the City Heath Care Partnership (CHCP) was confirmed as the successful bidder.
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‘Massive blow’: From left, Councillor Abigail Bell, Carers’ Centre manager Greg Harman and Councillor David McCobb, with concerned carers, handing over the petition to Hull City Council.
Despite more than 2,000 backing their plight, Hull City Council announced the contract decision had been upheld.
A joint statement issued by the council and NHS Hull Clinical Commissioning Group, which funds the support service, said: “Against the background of the significant changes within the NHS, it was decided that a Hull City Council-led procurement exercise would be a more stable and preferred option.
“A number of funding streams have been brought together to be able to provide a much wider range of services.
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.
