An article examined how individual budgets for adult social care impacted on carers and the caring role in England and Wales. It said that receipt of the individual budget had positive impacts on carers' reported quality of life and on social care outcomes.
Source: Karen Jones, Ann Netten, Parvaneh Rabiee, Caroline Glendinning, Hilary Arksey, and Nicola Moran, 'Can individual budgets have an impact on carers and the caring role?', Ageing and Society, Volume 34 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Dec
A paper examined changes in local spending on, and provision of, adult social care in England between 2005-06 and 2012-13. It indicated that there had been significant, and almost certainly unprecedented, reductions in spending and service provision, particularly for older people. It noted some caveats about the data.
Source: Jose-Luis Fernandez, Tom Snell, and Gerald Wistow, Changes in the Patterns of Social Care Provision in England: 2005/6 to 2012/13, Discussion Paper 2867, Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent/London School of Economics
Links: Paper | Care and Support Alliance press release
Date: 2013-Dec
A report said that efficiency savings in adult social care in England were becoming harder to identify, as local councils struggled to protect support for elderly and vulnerable people while tackling the 'funding gap' facing the nation's public services by 2020.
Source: Adult Social Care Efficiency Programme: Interim Report 2013, Local Government Association
Links: Report | LGA press release
Date: 2013-Jul
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on public expenditure on health and care services. It said that it agreed with most of the Committee's overall conclusions, in particular about the scale of the financial challenge facing the health and care system. But it said that the system was well placed to achieve the efficiencies, and deliver the transformation, required to sustain and improve services in the future – thanks to the reforms that it had introduced, its commitment to increase health funding in real terms, and the steps being taken to promote integration of services.
Source: Government Response to the House of Commons Health Select Committee Report into Public Expenditure on Health and Care Services (Eleventh Report of Session 2012-13), Cm 8624, Department of Health, TSO
Notes: MPs report (March 2013)
Date: 2013-Jun
A paper gave projections of expenditure on public health and long-term care until 2060 in developed (OECD) countries. On average, total health and long-term care expenditure was projected to increase by 3.3 and 7.7 percentage points of national income between 2010 and 2060, under two different scenarios.
Source: Christine de la Maisonneuve and Joaquim Oliveira Martins, A Projection Method for Public Health and Long-Term Care Expenditures, Economics Department Working Paper 1048, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Links: Paper
Date: 2013-Jun
A survey found that spending on adult social care in England would be 20 per cent (£2.68 billion) lower in 2013-14 compared with 2010-11. 82.3 per cent of the cuts in 2013-14 would be achieved through 'efficiencies', and 13 per cent through service reductions.
Source: Press release 8 May 2013, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services
Links: ADASS press release | LGA press release | BBC report | Community Care report | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Date: 2013-May
A paper examined the cost implications of the coalition government's plans to reform the funding system for care and support in England. It said that the proposals, with a cap on lifetime care costs of £75,000, would add £2 billion (at 2010 prices) to public expenditure by 2030. This was in contrast to a projected extra £3.3 billion cost of the Dilnot Commission's proposals, which had recommended a cap of £35,000.
Source: Ruth Hancock, Raphael Wittenberg, Bo Hu, Marcello Morciano, and Adelina Comas-Herrera, Long-Term Care Funding in England: An Analysis of the Costs and Distributional Effects of Potential Reforms, Discussion Paper 2857, Personal Social Services Research Unit
Links: Paper | LSE blog post | University of East Anglia press release
Date: 2013-Apr
A think tank published the results of two deliberative events with members of the general public that considered the level of future spending on health and social care. Participants strongly supported the founding principles of the National Health Service – access to healthcare based on need rather than the ability to pay, available to all, and of high quality – and wished these to endure. If user charges were to be introduced, there was support for applying them to 'not clinically necessary' procedures and for needs resulting from inappropriate lifestyle choices or misuse of the system.
Source: Amy Galea, Anna Dixon, Anastasia Knox, and Dan Wellings, How Should We Pay for Health Care in Future? Results of deliberative events with the public, King s Fund
Links: Report | Kings Fund press release
Date: 2013-Apr
A report by a committee of MPs said that the care provided by the health and social care system would break down without quicker progress in developing more integrated services. Responsibility for this process in a given area should be vested in the Health and Wellbeing Board. Joined-up commissioning would ensure that resources were no longer treated as 'belonging' to a particular part of the system, and instead became shared resources that were used more efficiently to deliver more flexible and responsive services. But this approach should not result in less overall funding: the coalition government's commitment to protect real-terms funding for healthcare should be extended to cover local authority social care services, and these funds should be ring-fenced at existing levels in real terms.
Source: Public Expenditure on Health and Care Services, Eleventh Report (Session 2012–13), HC 651, House of Commons Health Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Committee press release | Kings Fund press release | Labour Party press release | NHS Confederation press release
Date: 2013-Mar
A think-tank report said that health and social care could account for half of all government spending in 50 years' time. Changes to the population, increases in wealth, and medical advances would increase pressures to spend more on health and social care in the future. The ageing population would also be a factor, although – contrary to popular perception – this was likely to drive only a small proportion of the increase.
Source: John Appleby, Spending on Health and Social Care over the Next 50 Years: Why think long term?, King s Fund
Links: Report | Kings Fund press release | NHS Confederation press release | RCN press release | Daily Mail report | Guardian report | Public Finance report
Date: 2013-Jan