It has recently become clear that savings made from the closure of Struan Lodge – or from its passing out of council responsibility – will not, as has been claimed during the campaign to save it, be deployed in spending on elderly care at home services elsewhere across Argyll and Bute.
This means that spending from an area of responsibility with profound humanitarian and social implications might be redistributed to other spending areas altogether.
We had accepted without question that redistribution was intended – because there was an unarguable logic in using savings made from the closure of Struan Lodge to develop care in the community across Argyll and Bute as a whole.
It is now clear, in extracting relevant item from the overall council budget, that this is not what is planned and, from the results below, that the reverse is the case.
The extent of the overall cuts planned in elderly care services is breathtaking; as is the total lack of strategic planning for the new demand scenario in the not too distant future; and content in leaving Argyll and Buge well astray of being able to respond to that change in demand.
An overall outline of elderly care budget spending plans shows:An overall outline of elderly care budget spending plans shows:
- £400,000 per annum out from closing Struan Lodge
- £597,000 per annum out from reducing placements in care homes, over and above Struan lodge
- £257,000 per annum out from reducing the homecare (care at home) budget
- £36,000 per annum out from removing the Carer Development Worker post.
- £58,000 per annum out from reduction in Respite Bureau
- £26,000 per annum out from termination of the IDEA agreement which provided support for groups including the elderly who are classified as P2, P3 and P4 needy – in other words everything below P1, the immediately urgent care need cases.
- £10,000 per annum out from reduction in adult respite care
- £16,000 per annum out from reduction in development & flexibility
- £3,000 per annum out from reduction in delayed discharge
- £31,000 per annum out from LD day care provision.
The total of this comes to £1,407,000.00.
Then there are revenue streams arising from raised charges:
- £19,000 per annum increased revenue from Meals on Wheels
This means that the council is both taking a huge sum out of funding for elderly care, while, at the same time, taking more from them in charges for specific services.
The total gain to the council in cuts to elderly care and support services, along with increased revenue from raising service charges comes to £1,426,000.00.
Moreover charges for Telecare are being raised to bring in additional revenue of £33,000 per annum. This is a service of use to the elderly bed bound as to the bed bound of other age groups. We are not putting a figure on the amount this rise in charges will take from the elderly because we do not know the figures for the use of Telecare by the various statistical age bands – but this will also impact on costs borne by the elderly in need of care.
The question that has to be asked is where this massive reduction in elderly care provision across the board is going to see us in the future.
In a recent article – Struan Lodge and the future care of the elderly – we cited evidence from the Alzheimer’s society that England, Wales and Northern Ireland now have an estimated 320,000 or more of the 400,000 people living in care homes – 80% – with dementia or severe memory problems.
The proportion of our society moving into old age is increasing and in that population sector the incidence of dementia is increasing significantly, in part because people are living longer.
This means more demand for community care services and very much more demand for high dependency care. It is wholly unrealistic to imagine that carers can deal with such cases in domestic circumstances.
This is a not a scenario for the distant future or even for the mid term future. This is the imminent future.
Where is there evidence of strategic thinking and planning for this known scenario in Argyll and Bute Council? The very serious reduction in funding in these current plans can only lead to a major reduction in services for this very vulnerable group.
This is the responsibility of senior managers and executive officers at Argyll and Bute Council. Councillors come and go and can do little more than – at best and seldom actually delivered – hold up to robust scrutiny the proposals and the supporting evidence given to them by their officers.
The development of strategies, the forward planning to implement those strategies, the consideration of consequences and the costing – all have to come from council officers.
Where is any of this?
Argyll and Bute is being shortchanged all round on responsibilities which officers are well paid to deliver and councillors elected to challenge and oversee.
Think about it. £1,290,000 per annum cut from a single spending area – from the care of those who are in no position to make a case or express a view; and capacity cut and lost on the threshold of the greatest demand for such care we have experienced.