A paper presented projections of public expenditure on long-term care in Europe to 2060 under alternative assumptions. All scenarios projected a non-negligible increase in public expenditure.
Source: Barbara Lipszyc, Etienne Sail, and Ana Xavier, Long-Term Care: Need, Use and Expenditure in the EU-27, Economic Papers 469, European Commission
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Dec
A report said that net public expenditure on social care and continuing healthcare for older people in England was projected to rise from £9.3 billion (0.74 per cent of national income) in 2010 to £12.7 billion (0.78 per cent of national income) in 2022, assuming that existing patterns of care and official population projections kept pace with expected demographic and unit cost pressures.
Source: Raphael Wittenberg, Bo Hu, Adelina Comas-Herrera, and Jose-Luis Fernandez, Care for Older People: Projected expenditure to 2022 on social care and continuing health care for England s older population, Nuffield Trust
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Dec
An article examined the views of older adults who were receiving health and social care at the end of their lives on how services should be funded, and described their health-related expenditure. There was a gap between the health and social care system that older adults expected and what might be provided by a reformed welfare state at a time of financial stringencies. Participants expressed a belief in an earned entitlement to services funded from taxation, based on a broad sense of being a good citizen. Irrespective of social background, older people felt that those who could afford to pay for social care should do so. The sale of assets and the use of children's inheritance to fund care were widely perceived as unjust. The costs of living with illness were a burden, and families were filling many of the gaps left by welfare provision. People who had worked in low-wage occupations were most concerned to justify their acceptance of services, and distance themselves from what they described as welfare 'spongers' or 'layabouts.'
Source: Barbara Hanratty, Elizabeth Lowson, Louise Holmes, Gunn Grande, Julia Addington-Hall, Sheila Payne, and Jane Seymour, 'Funding health and social services for older people – a qualitative study of care recipients in the last year of life', Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 105 Issue 5
Links: Article | RSM press release
Date: 2012-Dec
A briefing paper examined the demographic and financial realities of social care and how these were likely to place additional pressure on the health and care system in the years ahead. In the long term, it was not sustainable to expect the funding shortfall of £2 billion for social care to come from the National Health Service.
Source: Papering over the Cracks: The impact of social care funding on the NHS, NHS Confederation
Links: Paper | NHS Confederation press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Sep
A think-tank report said that the coalition government had effectively conceded that reform of social care funding in England could proceed on a cost-neutral basis, and yet had failed to set out options for funding reform.
Source: James Lloyd, Caps, Opt-Ins, Opt-Outs: Is England making progress in reforming care funding?, Strategic Society Centre
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Jul
A report by an all-party group of MPs made a number of recommendations for action before 2015 to reform the care system and meet funding challenges. It said that the funding 'gap' was around 4.4 per cent per year, equivalent to £634 million. Local government and the National Health Service needed to integrate services and budgets to change the focus of social care services and spending towards prevention.
Source: Laurie Thraves, Janet Sillett, Jonathan Carr-West, and Andy Sawford, Care Now and for the Future: An inquiry into adult social care, All-Party Parliamentary Local Government Group
Links: Report | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Jul
A survey found that adult social services in England were in the process of having £890 million taken out of their 2012-13 budget. When combined with previous year's figures, the cumulative reduction in adult social care budgets was £1.89 billion. This was at a time of growing pressures from rising numbers of older and disabled adults.
Source: ADASS Budget Survey 2012, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services
Links: Report | ADASS press release | Labour Party press release | Guardian report | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Jun
A study examined the actual and potential costs, benefits, and impacts of an increase in self-directed support (SDS) in Scotland. Evidence from the study suggested that, if uptake of SDS followed the same pattern as direct payments, the costs of further uptake of SDS would not differ significantly between SDS and more traditional services; nor would it lead to a reduction in service.
Source: Kirstein Rummery, David Bell, Alison Bowes, Alison Dawson, and Elizabeth Roberts, Counting the Cost of Choice and Control: Evidence for the costs of self-directed support in Scotland, Scottish Government
Notes: Self-directed support is designed to enable individuals to direct the care or support they need to live more independently at home: it can be instead of, or in addition to, services that might be arranged by their local authority.
Date: 2012-Apr