Deepening Healthcare Crisis Looms

by danielbarker on 8 December, 2016

Social Care was once again the centre of attention as Walsall’s Health and Wellbeing Board met earlier this week to discuss the precarious state of healthcare in the town.

Liberal Democrat Health spokesman on the Board Cllr Ian Shires pointed to the Westminster Government’s failure to offer any financial help for social care in last month’s Autumn Statement as the major stumbling block to any progress of recovery plans for the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

The CCG faces an in year deficit of £1.2 million and also has additional cost pressures of £7.7 million. Given that it should have achieved a planned surplus of £3.8 million the scale of the challenge it faces amounts to £13.8 million. So all this jargon from the report which went to the Health and Wellbeing Board adds up to the fact that Walsall’s CCG could still be facing a deficit of £13.8 million at the end of 2016/17.

Cllr Shires questioned the validity of the figures given that the CCG had made certain assumptions around the Council’s level of delivery in respect of the social care provision. The fact that the council like other local authorities could not look to the Westminster Government easing up on its policy of cutting Local Government support grants following the Autumn Statement given by the Chancellor in November appeared to have been missed in the CCGs figures.

At the same meeting the Board discussed the Sustainable Transformation Plan (STP) for the Black Country and Birmingham West it emerged that the NHS faces a £512m gap in its funding “This ignores a funding gap of £188m for Social Care services provided by local authorities across the area” added Cllr Shires.

Taking the fight to Westminster Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Norman Lamb said:

“The Health Select Committee is right to call out the Government on false claims about their investment in the NHS. Services are desperately in need of the money they were promised.

“This also ignores the bigger question of how we ensure health and care is sustainable in the long term, as demand for services continues to rise.

“I have called for the establishment of an independent, cross-party commission to reform the funding settlement across health and care. He went on to say “The Liberal Democrats have set up an expert panel which will advise on how the additional funding the NHS really needs can be delivered including whether a dedicated Health and Care Tax should be introduced to help guarantee the future of the NHS and vital care services.”

These concerns are not confined to Walsall. Birmingham City Council has warned that the Birningham and Solihul STP faces a funding gap of £712 million. Walsall Council’s Labour/LibDem Cabinet meets next week where further concerns about the deepening healthcare crisis will be aired.

Content published and promoted by Roy Sheward on behalf of Dan Barker (Liberal Democrats) all at 144 Redhouse Lane, Walsall, WS5 0DB

   Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>