A charity has called for urgent funding to end the “vicious cycle” of the eldercare system.
Age UK has argued that the health and care system in England is under “severe stress”, along with social care that is “starving” in terms of resources, leading to under-performance, higher costs and worse patient care.
This is “a destructive vicious circle” according to charity director Caroline Abrahams.
She said: “Our health and care system is designed so that social care and NHS provision butt up against each other and interact in many different ways to help keep older people fit and well, but there are increasing examples of how starving social care of resources is seriously undermining the operation of the NHS – our hospitals especially.
“If an older person asked us today how confident we were that their health and care needs will be met well in the future we would be whistling in the dark if we gave a wholly reassuring answer. That is something about which we should all be profoundly concerned and which the government must change,” Abrahams added.
