This Council welcomes the addition of Social Care to the role of the Secretary of State for Health. Council has long been aware of not only the national crisis across social care but the one we face here in Trafford.

The lack of social care continues to have a major impact on the winter crisis across the NHS. There are stories of many people left in hospital beds and not able to get home due to the lack of provision of adequate social care packages. Delayed Transfers of Care many of which are due to social care have meant an increase in delayed beds days of 109,000 since 2010.

This Council recognises that in October 2017 there was a 10% reduction in delayed transfers (59,943) on the year before (65,888) but they are still 13% higher than at the same time in 2015 (52,791). The number of people spending the Christmas period in hospital due to Delayed Transfers of Care almost doubled between 2010 and 2016 (from 1,995 people on December 30^th 2010 to 3,929 on 29 December 2016).

This Council recognises that the care sector remains deeply unstable - according to the Association for the Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) Autumn survey 50 councils had experienced handbacks of care contracts. 92% (46 Councils) had experienced handbacks in home care, 24% (12) in residential care and 52% (3 Councils) in nursing care.

Here in Trafford as recently as last month there have been issues with care homes rated as inadequate and home care providers unable to meet the demand for social care. Indeed the St. Marks Centre in Sale has been found to be in such difficulty that they have been prevented from admitting new residents.

Nationally, budget funding cuts are having a detrimental impact upon the quality of care. Almost a quarter of all adult social care services had the poorest ratings for safety from the Care Quality Commission – 22% of care facilities require improvement and 2% are inadequate. Trafford’s figures are higher than this national average.

The funding situation remains precarious with no extra money identified for social care as per the Local Government Finance settlement. The Social care gap is projected to rise to £2.5 billion by 2020 according to the Kings Fund.

With these stark statistics in mind this Council calls on the Government to:

·             Provide an immediate injection of cash to properly fund social care (The Local Government Association state that an immediate cash injection of £1.3 billion is required to stabilise social care).

·             Assist local government with a national 10 year workforce strategy – investing in staff alongside increased financing is critical to ensure the sustainability of adult social care.

·             To develop and implement a fair funding scheme as part of the Green Paper to be initiated in the summer.

·             To provide councils with adequate funding for a Fair Price for Care – here in Trafford local providers state that they cannot continue to provide a service with the latest offer from this Council.

·             Develop more robust regulation frameworks in order to monitor the financial health of larger providers.

·             To deal with the issue of back pay which is due to care staff for sleep-ins. The sector estimates the costs of this back pay to be £400 million which places services for learning disability and children’s’ social care providers under serious threat.

In addition, this Council resolves to:

·             Review the 2018/19 draft budget proposals to ensure that the revenue funding allocated to adult social care services in the budget is sufficient, and increase the level of proposed spending if required in light of this ongoing crisis.

RESOLVED: That, the time being 9.24 p.m., consideration of this Motion be deferred to a future meeting of the Council.