County Councils in England have called on government to delay planned social care reforms, which are due to come into force in October next year.
Local authorities warn that they are unlikely to have the workforce capacity to implement such changes by October 2022 and could face a financial squeeze on services.
Under the reforms, which were outlined by former prime minister Boris Johnson, there will be a lifetime cap of £86,000 on care costs for individuals and means-tests will become more favourable.
Once people have reached this cap, the costs of their care thereafter – excluding health treatment – will be paid for by local councils.
In readiness for the changes, councils have been asked to assess everyone who will be eligible to receive additional financial support when the reforms come in.
The County Councils Network [CCN] has said that an estimated number of 5,000 more staff would be needed to carry out the extra care and financial assessments, which amount to some 197,000.
It estimates that overall, the number of assessments needed to be conducted will increase by 45 per cent, while in more populous areas such as the southeast it is likely to be much more.
The network said that it would be “almost impossible” for local authorities “to recruit that level of staff by next October”, which will culminate in a struggle to adjust to the new workload and stretch council resources. This, it adds, could ultimately lead to lengthier waiting times for care.
The CCN’s adult social care spokesman, Martin Tett, said: “Loading these reforms onto a system that is already in crisis could worsen care services by the time these reforms to 'fix' social care are introduced.”
Indeed, inflationary pressures are already squeezing council budgets further, with the CCN warning that more funding from government will be needed, or care services will need to be either reduced in capacity or increased in price.
Tett said that to avoid the reforms becoming unworkable, local authorities must be given “the time to mitigate the pressures they will create, recruit a sufficient number of staff, and stabilise services in the short term”.
The Department for Health & Social Care [DHSC] has said that it will work closely with local authorities to help enforce changes smoothly.
Under the reforms, DHSC said that it will invest £5.4 billion into adult social care over the next three years, with £500 million additional funding this winter.
While new prime minister Liz Truss has committed to carry through the reforms outlined by her predecessor, they will now be financed differently after she abandoned the National Insurance increase set out by Johnson that was intended to pay for them.
Health and social care secretary, Therese Coffey, has indicated that the requisite funding will now come from “general government money”.
