Over 3000 care providers are set to rally outside Westminster against a care funding shortfall of £2bn on February 25, 2025, following calls for action to improve adult social care.
Following the Autumn budget, Providers Unite – a grassroots coalition uniting community care and support providers across the UK – wrote a letter to Chancellor Racheal Reeves highlighting the current financial pressures facing the adult care sector.
In the letter, Providers Unite say that the new budget measures deepen an “already critical” £8.4bn funding shortfall in the sector.
According to the group, the sector is already in crisis, with 418,029 people still waiting for care assessments, support, or reviews, only 2 per cent of unpaid carers receiving financial support from their local council, and care providers are struggling with rising costs, staffing shortages, and funding cuts.
The letter emphasises the impact of the budget’s National Living Wage increase and employer costs that will be introduced from April 2025, including increases to national insurance contributions, as well as the cost assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is estimated to cost £800 per employee.
Providers Unite say the changes risk eroding the foundations of the public services delivered by care providers, including mental health, domiciliary care, learning disabilities, and supported living, and risk “triggering a cascade of contract surrenders and service reductions, leaving our most overlooked citizens without essential social care and potentially forcing more people onto NHS waiting lists.”
For private care providers, these changes could potentially lead to increases in fees for self-funded residents or put services at risk of closure.
With no response from the government on the matter, Providers Unite now plans to rally at Westminster to call for reforms.
Nadra Ahmed CBE, executive co-chairman of the National Care Association, said: “It is time to admit that everyone else cannot be wrong. It is government policy which is wrong and the failure to invest in social care makes the decision makers complicit in the inevitability of the collapse of our sector as we know it.
Care providers, DimensionsUK, said: “Not-for-profit providers like us will have no choice but to pass the full cost of the tax rise on to local authorities.
“Our work is statutory, meaning local authorities have to provide it. Without additional funding from central government there is now a clear risk that more local authorities will fail. We’ve joined social care providers to write to the Chancellor.”
Speaking at the time of the budget, Vic Rayner, CEO of National Care Forum, commented: “Far from heralding a new dawn for social care, this historic budget appears to do little to recognise the vital role that social care plays in the lives of millions of people up and down the country.
“Adult social care providers will be hit particularly hard by the government’s planned changes to employers’ National Insurance contributions. Unless fully funded, these increases alongside the welcome raising of the National Living Wage will combine to apply an enormous financial strain and also undermine their ability to focus on the real need to improve care workers’ pay, terms and conditions.
“With the apparent commitment of £22.6bn to the NHS compared to the £600m pledged to social care through local government funding it’s clear that the government still has a long way to go in supporting the critical role that care and support plays in the health and wellbeing of local communities. The shift from hospital to community simply will not work without the proper, long-term funding of social care.
“Of the local authorities with responsibility for social services, 70 per cent of their spending is on social care. Even if all the £600m were to be dedicated to meeting the cumulative additional costs that social care employers will now face, it is unlikely to cover the required uplifts. This is before envisaging how hard this will hit people who pay for their own care, in a system desperate for reform.
“The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has repeatedly spoken about the importance of a properly functioning adult social care system to fixing the NHS. He has also said it is important in its own right in enabling people to live well in the way they want to. We should be investing in this crucial piece of the nation’s infrastructure which improves population health and wellbeing, is inherently preventative, benefits the economy and takes the burden off acute services.
“It seems clear that this budget will not even provide the desperately needed stabilisation that every report, inquiry and select committee has demanded. Neither, unfortunately, does it reassure that this a government committed to ensuring social care is understood, prioritised and invested in as a public service that changes people’s lives.”
The budget shortfall could also affect cost-saving technologies.
Medication management company, Camascope, provides a platform that helps to administer over 12 million doses of medication monthly to over 60,000 care homes residents in the UK, enabling many care providers to move away from paper-based medication, reducing round times by over 25 per cent.
Kehan Zhou, CEO of Camascope commented: “The adult social care sector is a vital cornerstone of our health and care system, employing 1.2 million individuals nationwide.
“However, care providers across the UK are currently facing a perfect storm of significant cost pressures. A rise in the Living Wage, National Insurance Contributions changes, and a funding shortfall are threatening the delivery of high quality care and ultimately contributing to an existential threat to the sector.
“Costs pressures mean providers will be left with little option but to pause digitisation programmes which require workforce upskilling and investment.
“Outdated paper-based medication administration costs the NHS up to £1.5bn and is responsible for up to 12,000 deaths annually. Leveraging technology to enhance the quality of services can help mitigate this, generating much needed efficiencies and saving countless lives every year.
“We urge the government to take bold steps to restore the health of the adult social care sector and help drive the modernisation of the system which will help protect lives.”
Providers Unite will be gathering outside Westminster on Tuesday, 25 February, 2025 for the Providers Unite Day of Action where thousands will join together to rally for social care reform.
Image Caption: Photo by Deniz Fuchidzhiev on Unsplash
