SNP Budget 'will kill people', warns Scottish Care

Dr Donald Macaskill said the spending plans were ‘not good enough’

The Scottish Government’s spending plans will “kill people” because they fail to adequately support social care, the body representing the sector has warned.

Dr Donald Macaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, which represents the independent care sector, said the Budget was “even more disappointing than we feared it would be”.

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Finance secretary Shona Robison announced a “record” £21 billion for health and social care as she outlined her spending plans in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday. This included an increase of £2 billion for frontline NHS boards.

Scottish Care said the Budget lacked 'targeted support'Scottish Care said the Budget lacked 'targeted support'
Scottish Care said the Budget lacked 'targeted support' | PA

But Scottish Care said there was a “glaring lack of targeted support for social care”, arguing this threatened providers, workers and those they support.

Dr Macaskill said the plans represented a continued “obsessional focus on the NHS” at the expense of social care.

In a statement, he said: “Scottish Care called for a Budget that cares. This is a Budget that kills. It will kill any reassurance that the Scottish Government truly values social care, it will kill essential community services which are forced to close and leave workers without employment. And ultimately, it will kill people.

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“People are dying because they can’t get the social care they need. I hear of services that will need to close and make staff redundant by next week. This is not good enough.

“The Cabinet secretary for finance in Parliament [on Wednesday] said that social care funding is absolutely vital if we are going to tackle delayed discharge and look at the system as a whole across the NHS and social care.

“Yet this budget represents a continued absolute obsessional focus on the NHS that completely fails to learn the basic lesson that if social care is not able to continue, the NHS and all its targets and priorities are going to fail too.

“Focus on pay for social care workers becomes meaningless if there is not a sustainable sector for them to work in. The Government needs to listen to the sector and act now.”

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Scottish Care said that while the government had pledged £21 billion for health and social care, the “lack of ringfenced funding for social care services and their workforce highlights a disconnect from the real needs of the sector”.

It wanted measures to “further progress ethical commissioning, recognise pay differentials and address significant funding shortfalls, alongside urgent relief to mitigate the impact of National Insurance increases on social care employers”, but said these “remain conspicuously absent”.

Tory MSP Dr Sandesh Gulhane, his party’s health spokesman, said the “damning verdict” underlined the anger within the social care sector about the Budget.

He said: “With thousands of Scots are currently stuck on waiting lists for social care assessments, it should have been one of their top priorities.

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“The impact of failing to support social care services is ultimately felt across our NHS, including in our A&E departments and ultimately can lead to needless loss of life.

“This is not good enough. Instead of continuing to squander millions of taxpayers’ money on their doomed National Care Service, SNP ministers should urgently address Scottish Care’s concerns, otherwise vulnerable people will pay a heavy price.”

In response, Social Care Minister Maree Todd said: “We are investing almost £2.2 billion in social care and integration outlined in our draft budget, exceeding our commitment to increase funding by 25% by over £350 million.

“The draft budget also sets out proposed investment of almost £200 million in our plan to reduce waiting times and improve capacity, to reform the service and make it more efficient, and remove blockages that keep some patients in hospital far too long.

“We have been very clear that urgent social care reform is much-needed and we are working to secure the change needed to provide consistency of care across Scotland.”

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