9th March 2017

PRESS RELEASE 09/03/2017

National Care Association welcomes the announcement by the Chancellor in the Spring Budget of the additional £2bn funding for social care. We are cautiously optimistic that this money will make a real difference in addressing some of the challenges providers face with 8-10% gaps in their funding. We are keen to see the detail of how the fund will be dispersed and would call on the Treasury to ensure that the money is ring fenced for front line services. We believe that the grant will help to start the recovery pathway to a more sustainable social care market which meets the needs of the people we care for. What is imperative now is to address the issue of the long-term sustainability of the sector which will need a real partnership approach.

National Care Association Executive Chairman, Nadra Ahmed OBE said:

“It is heartening to note that social care has finally been acknowledged. This is a great step forward and will need to be followed up with a robust plan, through the green paper, to address the challenges going forward and how we address them.

It is important that this money is ring-fenced for front line provision and that it does not get subsumed by the transformation agenda which will be heavily reliant on cash injections in the future.

The important message from providers will be to ensure local government purchases quality care services, acknowledging that to retain a robust social care market they must use the money allocated to deliver it.”

ENDS