We write to you as 45 former directors of social services with many decades of senior management experience behind us, to express our grave concerns about the current underfunding of adult social care services. Not a day goes by without well-informed groups expressing their dismay at the outcomes for vulnerable adults. Yet despite this the chancellor made no mention of this issue in his autumn statement.
We know that £4.2bn has been taken from local authority budgets over the past five years. The appalling consequences are there for all to see. Rapidly rising levels of dementia, but cuts in home care support. Hospital beds full, but insufficient residential places for vulnerable adults to be discharged to. Increasing suicide levels among young people, but draconian cuts in mental health provision. Many more people living – and dying – in the streets, but inadequate support and a lack of hostel accommodation.
Some 500,000 older people are abused every year while cuts are being made in safeguarding provision. At the same time services for people with physical and learning difficulties have been drastically cut leaving many isolated and unsupported. The Care Quality Commission says the residential care service is at a “tipping point”. But should we really have to wait for more homes to go out of business before the necessary action is taken?
These are not the indicators of a caring and just society. We don’t need further reviews and promises. Thousands upon thousands of people are suffering and sometimes dying in misery. They need help now, and we call on the government to provide it, with urgency.
Rob Hutchinson, Dr John Beer, Hilary Simon, Chris Davies, Pauline Oliver, Anne Parker, Professor Ray Jones, Peter Westland, Ian White, Roy Taylor, Richard Jones, Andrew Cozens, Liz Railton, Brian Parrott, Jean Daintith, Jo Cleary, Julia Ross, Eileen Means, Gary Birch, Bill McKitterick, Mimi Konigsberg, Helen Taylor, Mary Robertson, Ann Windiate, Susan Richards, Robert Ward, James Reilly, Graham Gatehouse, Stephen Pitt, Lynn Hopkins, Derek Law, Ian Davey, Tim Brown, Stephen Sloss, Margaret Sheather, Matt Bukowski, Ian Winter, Colin Smart, Jonathan Phillips, David Mason, Peter Bye, Joyce Mosely, Teresa Bell, Jef Smith
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The urgent need to tackle crisis in adult social care | Letters
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