Hunt's Social Care Funding Figures are out of date!
- 15 Nov
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has claimed in parliament that councils would not face social care funding gaps following cuts - but based this on out of date evidence!
The Kings Fund report author that Mr Hunt quoted as evidence for making efficiency cuts of 2%, has said the figures are out of date and no longer reflective of councils' financial state.
The figure was quoted from a report written by Richard Humphries for the King's Fund in March 2011. Mr Hunt used the report to support his claim that councils could cope with a 7% cut to their social care budgets if they both used a £7.2bn transfer of funding from the NHS and made 2% efficiency savings.
From this, he deduced that councils should not have to cut social care services but would however "choose" to cut services because the money transferred from the NHS was not ring-fenced.
Humphries, who is a senior fellow at the King's Fund, has said it was not the right use of the figures, and that councils now faced a real gap in social care funding.
He said:
The situation has moved on a long way since that report was written. The figures are more than 18 months old and they assume councils would cut social care budgets by 7% on average.
Evidence has emerged since then that the actual cuts are likely to have been higher than that. We are clear that there is a crisis in social care funding.Source: LGC
Related articles
What are the Future Funding Arrangements for Supported and Sheltered Housing? "Really enjoyable presentation, knowledge of presenters was excellent" M.D. - Community Integrated Care