SNP must take urgent action over £560m funding black hole for social care

Scottish Labour warns that the crisis in social care risks turning into a ‘total meltdown’

As the SNP was thinking up plans for a hugely expensive but headline-grabbing National Care Service – described as the “most ambitious reform since devolution” by Nicola Sturgeon when she was First Minister – a crisis in the provision of social care for some of Scotland’s most vulnerable people was brewing.

Now, according to new figures, the budgets of the bodies responsible for providing social care, known as Integrated Joint Boards, have an estimated black hole of some £560 million. And the consequences are hitting home hard.

For example, in Glasgow, supported living services for people with dementia have been scrapped, the Notre Dame centre for traumatised children has been closed, and a contract with Marie Curie to provide overnight palliative care for terminally ill people has ended.

A £560 million black hole in funding for social care is having a real impact on this vital service (Picture: Pascal Pochard-Casabianca) | AFP via Getty Images

In a letter to Health Secretary Neil Gray, Professor Soumen Sengupta, chair of Health and Social Care Scotland, and Rachael King, of the Integrated Joint Board’s Chairs/Vice-Chairs Network, said that the financial shortfalls presented “an escalating risk to our collective ability to deliver services today and deliver reform tomorrow”.

They said that, over the next few weeks, they would be considering “how best to protect vital supports for the most vulnerable and at-risk in our communities”, but added “the reality is that with the cost of and increased demand for health and social care outstripping any funding increases, it will not be possible to sustain existing levels of care across all services”.

Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie warned the current financial crisis was threatening to turn into a “total meltdown”. “Essential care services are suffering devastating cuts and individual care packages are under threat,” she said.

That such a vital, frontline service has been allowed to reach such a sorry state should be utterly shocking. It is not only because so many other services, from universities to GPs surgeries, are facing similar problems.

If only SNP ministers had not been day-dreaming about the grandiose National Care Scheme scheme and had instead spent more time on the nuts-and-bolts of providing social care, they might have found ways to at least alleviate the pressure. Urgent action is required.