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Press Release

LGA response to the EHRC inquiry into home care

23 November 2011

Cllr John Merry, Vice Chair of the Local Government Association's Community Wellbeing Board, repsonds to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's inquiry into the home care system in England.

"These results are symptomatic of a social care system that is underfunded and in need of urgent reform.

"We all want to know that everything possible is being done to ensure our elderly friends and relatives are treated with the dignity and respect they rightly deserve and councils are committed to doing the very best for people in later life.

"Councils are facing long-term triple pressures of insufficient funding, growing demand and escalating costs, which have been compounded by recent Government funding cuts. Despite their best efforts, they are having to make tough decisions about the care services they can provide.

"Carrying out homecare inspections will help to make the service more accountable and transparent and in turn help boost the public's confidence that people in need are being properly looked after.

"However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Different councils face very different pressures in adult social care and decisions need to be taken locally. Simply to select a specific charge or service as a barometer of a council's approach to care is misleading. As well as direct services, adult social care is also tied into a council's public health, leisure, housing, transport and technology initiatives.

"Reforming adult social care is one of the most important issues this country is facing and governments can't keep dodging the question of how to properly fund it. The longer ministers procrastinate, the more our population ages and the worse things will become."



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