Money: the cost-of-living crisis means more cash is needed to cover the care of severely disabled people – but councils don’t have enough.
Here’s a little-known consequence of the cost-of-living crisis: disabled people are being evicted from charity-run care homes because local councils are refusing to pay increased costs.
These are people with severe disabilities whose care can cost anything between £85,000 and £150,000 per year.
The charity Leonard Cheshire said it had served 11 eviction notices on contracts with councils that had been under re-negotiation without agreement since February. Two were rescinded after councils agreed to pay uprated fees.
The fee increases reflect the rising costs of wages, energy and food due to the cost-of-living crisis that has been largely caused by the UK’s Conservative government, due to Brexit and energy privatisation that has led to failures to upgrade to cheap, locally-generated energy.
Leonard Cheshire has spent millions of pounds from its own reserves over the last few years, subsidising care services that councils have failed to fund adequately – but now says it can no longer afford to continue doing so.
Mencap has not evicted anybody because it generally doesn’t own the properties they occupy – but is subsidising one in five of the state-funded care packages it provides to 4,000 people – so that’s 800 of them. The cost to the charity is millions of pounds.
Evicted residents are unlikely to become homeless because their council or NHS funder has a duty to provide alternative care.
But the concern is that moving will disrupt the care that people get, and cheaper alternative arrangements will be of poorer quality or based far away from their family support network.
Ironically, the evictions are prompted by concerns that the level of council funding no longer guarantees basic safety and quality standards.
Inevitably, the government has claimed it provides plenty of money to support adult social care services – with the £7.5 billion available over two years constituting the biggest funding increase in UK history.
Conspicuously missing is any comment on whether this is enough money to cover the increased costs of care.
So you may safely conclude that it isn’t.
Source: Disabled care home residents evicted in charity’s dispute with councils | Social care | The Guardian
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