GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF NEGLECTING THE ELDERLY
Caroline Nokes, the Conservative Candidate for Romsey and Southampton North has backed the Local Government Association’s call for more Government funding to help the elderly.
Whilst public investment in the NHS has increased by over 90% in real terms since 1997, government funding to support care of the elderly via local authority social services has increased by just 14%. In the next 3 years alone there will be over 400,000 more elderly people in need of care without the funding required to give many the care they need and deserve.
Caroline Nokes has backed the LGA accusation that the government is placing local authorities in an untenable position and cynically passing the buck to local councils, without giving them the resources necessary for this increasing problem.
According to the Office of National Statistics Hampshire will be especially hard hit from increasing numbers of elderly people. The numbers of people over age 85 is increasing by approximately 1000 extra every year. There are currently 31,000 Hampshire residents over the age of 85, but in ten years that will have risen to 40,000. The average cost for an individual receiving adult social care is £12,900, and there are currently 83000 people in Hampshire requiring either residential care or care in their own home.
Caroline commented:
“As the economy moves into a very rocky period, the elderly should not be made to pay the price of the government’s mismanagement. The extra spending on health would have been welcome, had it achieved results but independent studies demonstrate that is not the case.
“If adult social care departments got proper support they could spare the NHS additional costs, but local government leaders, nationally and here in Hampshire, are deeply worried that this year’s comprehensive spending review will be very tight. In Hampshire we face significant increases in the number of elderly people, above the national average, but a very unfair allocation of resources. Whilst the average per capita grant to local authorities is over £160 in Hampshire it is just £96. In Scotland, Gordon Brown allocates his home region of Dunfermline over £600 per head. It is neither fair nor efficient and it is our residents who are bearing the brunt.”
Caroline campaigning for a better deal for pensioners at the last General Election
Members of the Romsey and Southampton North Conservative Patrons Club met at the home of Caroline Nokes MP over the weekend for drinks and discussi
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