Political commitments to safeguard health spending could have an adverse effect on social care budgets, the director of NHS finance has warned.
The NHS Director of Rinance may have let the cat out of the bag by telling CIPFA’s annual health care conference on October 14 that although the overall health budget should be hit less hard than other Whitehall departments, it was significant that more commitments were being made for the NHS than for social care.
Pointing to the ageing population that will put all health care services under increasing strain in years to come, Bob Alexander said: ‘Health and social care will be under the same sort of pressure at the same time. And we know in the past social care hasn’t done quite as well as health in funding protection and funding growth.’
Roger Kline of Aspect said “This honest, albeit depressing, speech puts the debate on long term funding for the care of elderly into context. Care for the elderly is grossly under funded and it looks like things may get even worse, putting even more pressure on social workers’ duty of care and local service”.
Read more at
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2009/10/protecting-health-spending-could-hurt-care-budgets/
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