Stephen Morgan MP accuses the Government of unfair and unsafe cuts to Adult Social Care following new report.
Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan today hit out at the Government for threatening to put vulnerable elderly and disabled people at risk by failing to properly fund adult social care.
The Chancellor today made his Spring Statement in the House of Commons but made no provisions for the current funding gap in local government and services.
This comes after Shadow Secretary for Communities and Local Government, Andrew Gwynne, and Labour’s Shadow Minister for Social Care, Barbara Keeley, have published a report which highlights the growing crisis, and called on the Government to use the Spring Statement to deliver the additional funding necessary to avert a widespread crisis in social care.
The report’s findings include:
· Since 2010, £6.3 billion has been cut from Adult Social Care.
· Funding cuts are now having a detrimental impact on care quality. Almost a quarter of all adult social care services had the poorest ratings for safety – requires improvement (22%) or inadequate (2%).
· Demand is growing but this is being met with cuts: the number of people with an unmet social care need in England could be as high as 2.35 million.
· The Social Care system requires an immediate injection of £1.3bn. The Social Care funding gap is projected to rise to £2.5 billion by 2020.
Local Authorities across the country are set to lose 79% of the direct funding that they had in 2010 by 2020 according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Stephen Morgan MP, added:
‘Year on year cuts, brought about by this Government, have left public services in Portsmouth stretched to breaking point. People in our city are seeing their local services depleted, the dedicated staff who deliver them overworked and underpaid, and our children and elderly bearing the brunt.
Portsmouth Council has had its budget cut to the bone; there are only so many cuts you can make before families start to suffer very real consequences.
Last year over 72,000 children were taken into care nationally, and more than a million of our elderly people are living with their care needs unmet.
Each of these are, in and of themselves, crises. The Government is letting down the most vulnerable in our society and the Chancellor’s Spring Statement does nothing to even acknowledge these issues, let alone act on them.’
John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor to the Exchequer, added:
‘I believe we are approaching a moment of real national crisis on this.
Essential services simply cannot cope with the strain of spending cuts that have now stretched into their eighth year, with no end in sight.’
