Age UK Reveals Crisis in Spending on Elderly Care

Published 07 March 2014.

A report has been published this week by Age UK revealing that government spending on social care services for elderly people has reduced dramatically.

The amount spent on elderly care services has dropped by £1.2 billion since 2010 (15.4%), whilst the number of elderly people aged 85 years+ (typically those who are most likely to need support) has increased by 30% since 2005 (from 986,000 to 1,280,000).

As a result of these shifts, access to local authority funded elderly care services has reduced significantly with most councils now only being able to provide help if a person’s needs have been assessed as being ‘substantial’ or above. Consequently, the number of people aged 65 years+ in receipt of social care services has dropped by a huge 27% since 2005 (from 1,231,000 to 896,000), despite the fact that this segment of the population has grown by more than 1 million.

In light of the continued underfunding of the elderly care sector in the UK, the government is coming under increased pressure to reduce the stresses on the system. In response, they are due to create a pooled £3.8 billion budget with the NHS next year to encourage greater co-ordination and then in 2016 the cap on care costs will be introduced.

Despite this, it is still widely considered that families are going to be forced to take greater responsibility for the care of their elderly relatives in the future, either financially or through direct intervention.Carefound Home Care works with families directly to ensure that they have the services and support they need to enable their elderly relatives, including those experiencing dementia, to remain in the comfort of their own homes for as long as possible – this is not only a preferred option for most people but is also far less costly than residential care.

Age UK’s report can be viewed here: Care in Crisis Report 2014

Carefound Home Care is a provider of specialist home care and dementia care services to elderly people in North Yorkshire, enabling clients to continue to live independently in the comfort of their own home whilst maintaining the highest quality of life achievable. Services provided include basic help in the home, companionship, personal care, medication help, post-operative rehabilitation, respite care and specialist help such as dementia care and palliative care. The flexible service is available from 1 hour to 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, including a specialist live-in care option.

To contact Carefound Home Care in Harrogate call: 01423 774070, for Ripon call: 01765 530000, for Wetherby call: 01937 220200. For additional information please visit: www.carefound.co.uk.