Community care

Government sets out immediate investment and reforms to improve adult social care and announces plans to launch an independent commission on long term reform

Changes this year will include an extra £86 million funding for the Disabled Facilities Grant to help more disabled and elderly people to live more independently and reduce hospitalisations

Round-up of recent community care-related Ombudsman decisions and reports

Local government finance settlement provides extra funding for social care in England, and confirms no change to council tax referendum principles

Government also says that it will consult in 2025 on options to improve the transparency of council tax billing, and to introduce a default option to pay over 12 months as with most other household bills

Welsh Government decides to maintain the maximum charge for adult non-residential care and support at its current level

Consultation response also confirms that a shared services approach at either a regional or national level will be considered in order to address inconsistencies in charging regime operations across local authorities

Ombudsman finds that ‘insurmountable hurdles’ are preventing councils from providing services to an adequate standard

Review of Ombudsman service also shows that 80 per cent of social care and 84 per cent of housing complaints were upheld in 2023/2024

More than eight in ten English councils expect to overspend their adult social care budgets this year

Autumn survey of social services directors also shows that current pressures limit spending to only those with the highest needs, precluding investment in preventative services or long-term improvements

Total value of deferred payment agreements with local authorities in England for adult social care exceeded £300 million at the end of 2023/2024

New NHS figures also show that around a sixth of new DPAs involved local authorities loaning care users the cost of care in instalments rather than paying a care home directly

Health and Social Care Committee launches inquiry into the cost of inaction on adult social care reform

First inquiry of the newly appointed Commons Committee will examine issues including the cost of inaction to individuals, the NHS and local authorities

More must be done to ensure unpaid carers are proactively identified and informed of their right to a needs assessment

Public Services Ombudsman for Wales highlights that less than 3 per cent of carers in recent investigation had had their needs assessed

Waits for care home beds and home-based care are accounting for almost half of delays in discharging people from acute hospital stays

CQC annual State of Care survey also finds that the number of new requests for adult social care support that resulted in no service being provided increased by 27 per cent compared to 2017/2018

Law Commission launches consultation to seek views on options to reform disabled children’s social care law in England

Forming part of a wider review of current legislation, Commission says it wants to ensure that reform will make the law 'fairer, simpler and more up to date'

Council leaders across Scotland withdraw support for National Care Service (Scotland) Bill

COSLA says that decision reflects local government’s concerns that feedback was not being sufficiently taken into account  by the Scottish Government

Ombudsman reiterates call for independent care providers to be required to signpost complainants to its service in the same way as council-funded providers

Call made in light of annual review of social care complaints showing a consistently lower number of complaints from people who fund their own care than would be expected given their proportion in the care market

Scottish Government must provide update on its ‘overhaul’ of eligibility criteria for self-directed support, say MSPs

Parliamentary committee says that problems with eligibility criteria are one of a range of factors that have hampered the implementation of the Social Care (Self-Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013

Family of severely disabled woman receives £37,000 compensation from Integrated Care Board for its failure to properly arrange care package funded by NHS continuing healthcare

Ombudsman investigation identifies avoidable delay in the provision of NHS-funded care and a failure to properly assess the woman's health and night-time care needs

Government now has no plan to address the ‘growing mismatch’ between people’s need for social care support and the availability of publicly funded care in England

Reaction to yesterday's announcement that the previous government's plans to introduce adult social care charging reforms will not be taken forward in October 2025, also warns that the current social care system is 'not fit for purpose' and 'near collapse in places'

Government announces that it will not be proceeding with planned reforms to adult social care charging in October 2025

Chancellor says that previous government failed to put money aside for the changes and that they're impossible to deliver in full to the previously announced timeframe