Hospital discharges limiting home care in England, councils say

Vulnerable people face being denied basic preventive social care at home due to a wave of rapid discharges from hospitals that is sucking up resources, council bosses have warned.

Despite cross-party support for more early care at home, town hall officials are having to allocate resources to people with more complex needs, many discharged from hospital early as part of attempts to clear NHS backlogs.

It means thousands of others were “at risk of missing out [on care] or their needs escalating”, warned the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services in England (Adass) after its annual survey of England’s 153 council social care directors.

It revealed that only 1 in 10 directors were fully confident their budgets would meet their statutory duties – down from more than a third before the Covid pandemic.

Spending aimed at preventing people’s conditions from worsening was forced down by £121m over the past year. As the complexity of cases increases, councils overspent by £586m – the highest level for at least a decade, triggering raids on dwindling council reserves.

The findings were “unsustainable and worrying” said Melanie Williams, the president of Adass and director of adult social care at Nottinghamshire county council.

“Instead of focusing on investment in hospitals and freeing up beds, the new government must shift to investing in more social care, supporting unpaid carers, and providing healthcare in our local community to prevent people reaching crisis point and ending up in hospital in the first place,” she said.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 July 2024