Budget: social care funding a ‘sticking plaster’

Chancellor Philip Hammond said adult social care would be given an additional £650m in 2019/20, while £45m would be added to the disabled facilities grant funding.

In today's Budget, Mr Hammond also confirmed the £20bn boost to NHS spending over five years that was announced by the prime minister in the summer – £2bn of this funding will be ring-fenced for mental healthcare.

The chancellor also confirmed there would be no new private finance initiative (PFI) or PF2 deals, though he said he was not against public private partnerships if they offered value for the taxpayer. The Department of Health and Social Care will set up a centre of best practice to improve the management of existing private finance schemes.

Mr Dickson (pictured) welcomed the additional funding but said it would not cure the ills of health and social care.

‘This should have been a budget for the NHS to celebrate extra money after a decade of austerity; and make no mistake the confirmation of that money is welcome. But let no-one be in any doubt about the challenge ahead – rising demand, a monumental workforce crisis and an urgent need to change the way services are delivered will make the next few years very tough indeed.’

He added: ‘Social care remains the Achilles heel – it has been consistently underfunded, neglected and unloved by politicians over many years and the extra funding announced today – again welcome – is clearly inadequate. What we needed was support to get the system back on its feet but what we have is yet another sticking plaster.’ 

Glen Garrod, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, welcomed the additional social care funding. But he added: ‘This is still far short of the £2.35bn that ADASS identified would be needed for social care to stand still in 2019/20; councils have been struggling with funding shortfalls for years.’ 

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, welcomed the allocation of mental health funding. 'The allocated money for mental health sends the right message about the importance of ensuring  parity with physical health services,' he said. 'However while this funding is directed at specific new programmes, it is vital that we also see more support for core services for people with severe and long term mental health problems. And given previous commitments on mental health funding it is particularly important to ensure that, this time, any additional money does actually reach the front line.'

The Nuffield Trust was concerned about omissions from the Budget. It was thought that Mr Hammond would outline capital funding plans and that there may be further announcements on training and public health. But the Budget documents only reiterated the government’s commitment to supporting transformation through multi-year capital plans, giving training multi-year budgets and supporting public health. Proposals would be considered, and announcements will be made in next year’s spending review, it said.

‘The financial fate of the vital services on which the NHS relies on was once again left hanging today,’ the trust said.

‘While more money going into social care will be welcome, it is another short-term fix to a system nobody seriously disputes is fundamentally broken. Troublingly, we heard no guarantees about the budgets for hospital buildings, IT investments, training or public health. We did hear a guarantee of no new PFI deals – but let’s be realistic, there were none on the horizon anyway.’