News

A new report by the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation thinktanks looks into the reductions in adult social services for the elderly in England shows that budget allocations from central Government to English local authorities were reduced by 14% in real terms between 2011/12 and 2014/15. The report asks how local authorities have responded to this decline in income and explores the impact on older adults’ health and wellbeing. 

The guardian noted that this means a quarter of a million older people have lost their state-funded help with carrying out everyday activities such as bathing, dressing and eating in the past four years as council budgets have been slashed and services rationed. 

Nuffield Trust Chielf Executive Andy McKeon commented that there were 'serious and fundamental flaws in the funding and provision of care for older people that haven’t been addressed and will only get worse'. 

The report, called Focus On: Social care for older people is part of a major research programme providing independent scrutiny into how the quality of health and social care is changing over time.