Your chances of getting vital life changing care if you need it vary hugely across England in what is a shocking postcode lottery. This is the stark finding of research by the Care and Support Alliance (CSA) which represents more than 60 leading charities campaigning for decent care for all those who need it and their unpaid carers.
The research shows that across England, you have the greatest chance overall of having your request for care accepted if you live in North East, and the lowest if you are in the West Midlands. However, within all regions there are big variations between local authorities: if you need care and support to help you live your daily life, your chance of having your request refused varies from 85% in some local authority areas to 12% in others. In London for example, the rates of requests being rejected by local authorities within just a few miles of each other range from 84% to just 20%.
The greatest variation within regions is in London, where there is an enormous 64% gap between local authorities in the rate of requests for care being declined. The least variation is in the East Midlands, but this still stands at a significant 31%.
Click here to find out about care in your area
The CSA says that these extreme variations are the result of a perfect storm at a national level of rising demand for care, rising costs, regionally specific recruitment and workforce challenges and strained local authority budgets, all compounded by years of delays to social care reform.
In addition, there are local factors which can amplify the variation. Some councils are better able to raise revenue locally than others, to help them compensate for the cuts in central Government funding they have experienced over the years. Added to this, the way funding is allocated to local authorities hasn’t been updated for some years, meaning the allocations no longer always reflect the needs of the current local population. Local authority duties to provide social care are set out in law and a person with a given level of need and resources ought to receive a broadly similar response everywhere, but at the moment this is clearly far from the case.
The analysis is released as a new CSA tool is launched which shows people how national government inaction on social care is having a real impact in their area, inviting them to join its campaign: https://act.careandsupportalliance.com/page/151615/action/1
The CSA is urging the new Government to urgently get to grips with the desperate problems individuals and families are facing accessing social care. It must act quickly so older and disabled people can get the care they need. Good social care supports people to live their lives: to get up and out, work, see the people they love, be independent. Yet currently at least 2.6 million* people go without the care they need.
