Urgent funding reform needed to save adult social care system, experts warn
Urgent reform of adult social care funding is needed to save a desperately overstretched system which has now reached breaking point, experts have warned.
A new report by researchers at the University of Birmingham says adult social care in the UK has been plunged into crisis after a "lost decade" in which policy makers have failed to address issues of chronic underfunding.
They say that without immediate Government action the system could quickly become unsustainable – a situation that is likely to have worsened as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Jon Glasby, lead author of the report and Professor of Health and Social Care at the University of Birmingham, said: "Our research has explored the future reform and costs of adult social care, and the high cost of inaction.
"In 2010, we were adamant that doing nothing was not an option. Our 2020 update shows that, without swift Government intervention, the adult social care system could quickly become unsustainable.
"Even though this research was carried out before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, urgent action is likely to be even more pressing in the current context."
The research, which was published in the Journal of Social Policy, updates a 2010 Downing Street-commissioned review which concluded that adult social care was widely recognised as "broken" and that with no action, the costs of adult social care could double within two decades.
It says the warnings were not heeded and the situation has since got worse, with funding not changing in response to increased costs, and rising need.
The result has been more self-funding, lower quality care, a crisis among providers, and much greater pressure on staff, families and partner agencies, the report says.
It says that cuts have "fallen heaviest" on older people, an issue which is likely to be partly linked to "ageist attitudes".
The paper says: "When social care for older people is cut to the bone, lives are blighted, distress and pressure increase, and the resilience of individuals and their families is ground down.
"Yet this happens slowly – day by day, week by week, and month by month. It is not sudden, dramatic or hi-tech in the way a crisis in an A&E department may be, and tends to attract less media, political and popular attention. With yet more urgency than in 2010 we warn: Doing nothing is not an option."
