WIREDGOV

Councillor Izzi Seccombe, the Local Government Association's Community Wellbeing spokesperson, responds to Lord Carter's report on delayed discharges.

"No one's elderly parent, grandparents or friends should be left unnecessarily in a hospital bed, when they could be treated in the comfort and dignity of their own home.

"This will only work if local government gets enough resource throughout the whole year to properly fund adequate provision of care services. This is no longer a winter pressure but a whole year challenge to ensure that the whole system is able to cope with the increased demand on the NHS. Local government is committed to reducing the level of delayed transfers of care. In the vast majority of areas councils and their health partners are working together collaboratively and effectively to reduce pressures on the NHS.

"While the measures announced in the Spending Review for social care will go some way to addressing the problems facing adult social care funding, it is still nowhere near enough and concerns remain that future years will still be extremely challenging, particularly the next two.

"That is why the LGA is calling for £700 million of the funding earmarked for social care through the Better Care Fund by the end of the decade to be brought forward now, to ease the severe strain on services supporting the elderly and vulnerable."

View Lord Carter’s report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/498163/Operational_productivity_review.pdf