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NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
16th July 2002
OVER-HYPED SPENDING REVIEW IGNORES
UK’S ‘FORGOTTEN LEGIONS OF MOST NEEDY
OLD FOLK’
Chancellor Gordon Brown has been accused of ignoring the plight of some of the country’s most vulnerable people in his government spending review announced yesterday.
No extra cash appears to have been earmarked to pay for the care in nursing homes that is needed by highly dependent older people for whom staying in their own homes is not an option. This, say those who work in the nursing home sector, makes a mockery of the Chancellor’s claim that his policies aim to guarantee security for all in society.
The Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) says its members are ‘flabbergasted’ that the review made no mention of additional resources specifically for this group of patients. Yet again, the association stresses, the political hype around government spending plans has failed to assist the ‘forgotten legions of Britain’s most needy old folk’.
Commented RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: “With completely independent researchers having recently warned the government that older people in nursing home care need around £100 a week more spent on them to ensure an appropriate level of care, it is incredible - some might even say wholly negligent - for nothing whatever to be forthcoming in the spending review.”
He added: “Defence, law and order, transport, education and scientific research have all been given generous settlements. But older people in care have once again been sidelined as though they don’t exist. Maybe it’s because they are too ill and too frail to carry any political clout. Whatever the cause, we urge Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to focus their minds on the current crisis in nursing and residential care.”
Although the Chancellor repeated in his statement to the House of Commons the fact that social services budgets are rising by around 6 per cent in the coming year, the RNHA argues that services for children are tending to nudge the care of older people into a funding backwater.
The association points also to a Rowntree Foundation report recommending that weekly payments for older people in nursing homes should rise immediately from the current average of between about £350 to £380 a week (around a 20 to 30 per cent increase in the level of State funding support for older people in care).
Said Mr Ursell: “The Chancellor made great play in his statement of the fact that children are our country’s future. Indeed, they are. But does this mean that those in our society who have already given of their best are going to be treated as though they are of little consequence, just because they are now too sick to contribute to the economy? Surely a caring society looks at people’s needs throughout their life cycle, not just when politicians see them as potential wealth creators and tax payers.”
He added: “Nursing home owners looking for evidence of a recognition by the Chancellor and his colleagues of the crisis in long term care will come to only one conclusion - that their services are not wanted by the government.
“Currently, the sector is on a knife edge. If home owners now vote with their feet, all of the aspirations of the government for the NHS will be put in jeopardy. The NHS Plan, hospital discharge planning targets and other important NHS goals will not be met, and hospitals will need to prepare to look after more and more old people.”
END
For further information and comment, please contact:
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, RNHA
Tel: 0121-454 2511 or mobile 07785 227000
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