Long Term Care Funding
The importance of social care for older people has never been so important, especially at a time of demographic change and with a coalition government in place, but the future of funding for this purpose is not clear and those providing care are finding themselves under pressure to continue services.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that by 2026, the number of people over 85 years of age will have doubled and the number of those over 100 will have quadrupled.
The likely need for social care rises with age. In 2008 the government warned that within 20 years the funding gap for social care provision could reach £6 billion.
Reforming funding is a major task facing the new coalition government especially in light of the national debt and the cuts in public expenditure – at a time when public spending on adult social care rose by 53% between 1997 and 2008.
The coalition government’s proposals for social care are:
1) To establish a commission on long term care to report within a year. The commission will consider a range of ideas, including a voluntary insurance scheme to protect the assets of those who require care.
2) To break down the barriers between health and social care funding
3) Extending personal budgets to give people and their carers more control
4) The use of direct payments to carers and better community based provision to improve access to respite care
LCS is able to offer individual help and advice to all clients in relation to Making a Will, Estate Planning, Lasting Powers of Attorney, Probate Services, Financial Planning for the Future and many more services.
Based on a report in the July 2010 issue of Nursing Older People
