Content needed.
“St Helena Hospice welcomes the decision by the Government to make a one-off capital grant to English hospices. However, it is ever rising revenue costs and in particular the increase in employer national insurance contributions that is hitting the sector hard and will continue to do so for years to come. Right now, the country is losing vital hospice capacity with hard working nurses and doctors being made redundant and services being cut. This is a travesty and a long-term, fair and sustainable funding settlement for hospices can’t come soon enough. Until then we fully support the proposal for a change in Bank of England financial regulations providing an opportunity for the Government to inject essential funds into hospices, social care and GP services to offset the counter-productive and punitive increase in employment costs for essential care providers.”
“the RMBI Care Co fully supports this request of Government to reverse their position on NI. As a social care provider with over 1000 beds the inequalities in care between self funders and state funded placements continues to widen with providers subsidising under funding. Adding a NI increase pushes providers over the edge when as a charity involved in providing a service to public funded people we should be exempted. Please as a matter of urgency reverse your decision”.
“Salutem Care and Education currently employs more than 3,000 staff to provide care and education for almost 2,000 individuals with the most complex of needs. Taxing us on employing those people is a significant retrograde step that has forced us to look closely at reducing our provision to balance the massive increase in employee costs. This is obtuse given the Governments stated, and necessary, aim to reduce the pressure on the NHS. This policy is having the direct opposite impact to that need as we will be reducing capacity which will have a detrimental impact on the NHS.”
“Residential care providers and hospices are an essential part of the wider healthcare system, supporting the NHS and vulnerable people. It is commonly accepted that social care has been underfunded for many years whilst, at the same time, facing a tide of increasing regulations and expectations around the quality of care provided. Add to this an aging population with increasingly complex care needs and many care providers find themselves close to breaking point. The last thing social care needs right now is further cost increases, especially the Government’s recent announcements on National Living Wage and Employer’s National Insurance without adequate funding. Early indications are the Local Authorities will not have funding to fully compensate care providers meaning that services delivered to the most vulnerable in our society are at risk which surely cannot be acceptable. We urge the Government and Local Authorities to reconsider the situation so that adequate funding is urgently made available. Until that happens, we fully support the proposal for a change in Bank of England financial regulations providing an opportunity for the Government to inject essential funds into social care services to offset the counter-productive and punitive increase in employment costs for essential care providers.”
“We support people with learning disabilities and autism. “Every single report on social care, from Directors of Adult Services, to the Care Quality Commission is sounding claxons that the support that touches 1 in 3 of us is in crisis. Andrew Dilnot at the Health and Social Care Select Committee on 8th January convened to look at the impact of inaction by our governments summed it up – “it’s blindingly, bleedin’ obvious that something needs to be done”. The bombshell announcement and subsequent refusal to mitigate the impact of changes to Employer National Insurance contributions will have devasting consequences. Social care goes a long way to supporting people to live well. The proposal by Box Power offers a practical, fair way forward and deserves a hearing.”