Age UK response to to Therese Coffey's statement in the HoC on her plan for Health & Social care

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director for Age UK said:

"We face one of the toughest winters on record, with the NHS and social care both under relentless pressure, their workforces severely depleted, so while we welcome the measures announced today, we fear they will not be enough.They certainly do not address the deep, underlying problems affecting the NHS and social care, chronic workforce shortages above all. As each day goes by the need for an ambitious, properly funded workforce plan across health and social care becomes ever more pressing.

"We wanted the Secretary of State to announce an immediate pay rise for care workers in her statement. Without it we remain concerned that care staff will continue to walk away, attracted by appreciably better terms and conditions in other sectors. Care workers are the bedrock of social care and you simply can't provide decent care to the growing numbers of people of all ages who need it unless you have enough of them. Our concern is that there wasn't anything in today's announcement to give most care workers a reason to stay, if they can earn a lot more in another kind of job."

"We understand the need to address patient flow in hospitals and the focus on speeding up discharges. However, the risk is that today's measures plug holes in that part of the system but make them worse in others. Older people in need of care who live at home and who are not coming out of hospital could have to wait longer, for example, if more resource is targeted towards care post discharge, and away from that in the community.

"A much bigger and bolder plan for social care cannot come too soon, one that looks at social care across the piece, deals with long term workforce and financial shortfalls, and gives careful consideration to how we can better meet the needs of everyone who uses care, including disabled people of working age as well as older people. Such a plan must also look at how we can better support the millions of unpaid carers in our society, who are currently being asked to shoulder too much of the job of providing care themselves.

"This Government is very new and could not reasonably be expected to come up with such a plan today, but the need is urgent and growing, the clock is ticking and we will expect to hear much more on this later in the year."