24.06.15
LGA calls for £5.2bn transformation fund for health and social care
A further £5.2bn is “urgently needed” to overhaul how social care and health services are provided, according to a new report from the Local Government Association.
The new report, by Ernst and Young and commissioned by the LGA, calls on the government to use next month's Budget to divert £1.3bn a year into a transformation fund until 2019-20. The £5.2bn this generates would be used to develop a new health and social care system.
The proposed transformation fund should focus on preventative measures and aim to prevent complex and long-term conditions, says the report. It estimates these conditions can cost the system almost £88bn a year.
The report identifies preventative measures that can make a significant impact on savings. It says that by spending £1 on local friendship networks savings of almost four times that amount on mental health services can be made. Another example cited is £1 spent on school-based smoking and bullying prevention can save as much as £15.
The report also recommends that the transformation fund should be supported by a pooled health and social care budget of at least £6.6bn in 2016-17, eventually leading to the pooling of all money for health and social care.
The LGA say that figures show that 30% of health and care service users use almost 70% of the health and social care budget, putting the adult social care system is under immense and growing pressure.
Cllr Izzi Seccombe, chairman of the LGA's community wellbeing board, said: "This report supports what councils leaders have long been warning, that we need an urgent and radical change to the way in which we provide care for the elderly and disabled.
"We need to think now about how we help people to stay healthy, rather than pick up the pieces when it is too late. This is not fair on people who deserve the best and most dignified care and it is putting an additional pressure on a system caring for a growing number of people with complex needs and which is already buckling under the strain.”
The LGA will use the report’s findings to outline what councils need from the Government in the coming Comprehensive Spending Review.
Tell us what you think – have your say below or email [email protected]