Pressures on unpaid carers as care cap system excludes all but a few.
Care cap becoming ‘irrelevant’ as ‘crisis-mode’ system excludes all but a few, report finds
The number of elderly people receiving help with their care has dropped by a fifth in just four years as cash-strapped councils have begun “rationing” support only to those at “crisis-point”, a report by a leading think-tank shows.
By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor 12:01AM BST 21 May 2013
A total of 231,000 fewer elderly people are receiving help with their care than four years ago despite a surge in the numbers reaching old age.
The report welcomes the reforms being implement in the wake of the landmark Dilnot Commission to prevent people being forced to sell their homes.
But it warns that for many people, money is no longer the “primary concern” because they cannot even qualify for care until they are so frail that they can no longer live in their own home.
It adds that, even with the Dilnot reforms, the care system is becoming “dysfunctional”, something people only rely on as a last resort rather than a source of care.
Crucially, it warns, that will undermine the Government’s main goal of focusing on “prevention and early intervention” to enable people to avoid having to go into care homes or hospitals if at all possible.
It calls for a major overhaul of how funding is allocated in health and social care to prevent “ever more draconian rationing” and officials being forced to “rob Peter to pay Paul” by diverting cash from the NHS to care services.
According to an analysis of Government figures the number of people over 65 receiving publicly funded in England care fell below the one million mark to 989,905 last year from 1.2 million four years earlier.
Over the same period the number of older people has grown sharply as a result of the ageing population, with the number of over-85s up by more than 20 per cent.
Figures from councils show that while they have largely preserved their overall care budgets, while making major cuts elsewhere, they have been forced to tighten up their criteria meaning that only those assessed as having the most serious needs get any help.
“Public funding has been gradually skewed towards a tightly rationed system focusing on fewer people – those with highest needs and lowest means,” the report explains.
“More and more people are becoming disengaged from a care system that is increasingly dysfunctional, driven by crisis rather than the promotion of well-being and prevention.”
It adds: “The cap and extended means test will be irrelevant if people with moderate needs fall outside the public system.
“As the number of people with care and support needs continues to grow, the level of unmet needs will rise too, and the system will become even more reactive and crisis-driven.
“This will place further pressures on unpaid carers.”
