In its annual State of health and adult social care report, the Care Quality Commission said council funding for care was not keeping up with need, with requests for care per 100,000 population up 4.9% from 2017-18 to 2021-22, while the numbers receiving care as a result fell by 2.2%.
The report also found that a quarter of providers surveyed in July 2023 had considered quitting the sector over the past year, as council funding failed to keep pace with their rising food, energy and staffing costs.
Charity coalition the Care and Support Alliance said the Care Regulator’s latest report on the UK care sector was “without doubt the worst we have ever seen and within it, the picture painted of how social care is currently performing is unremittingly grim”.
The CSA’s chairs, Caroline Abrahams (Age UK), Emily Holzhausen (Carers UK) and Jackie O’Sullivan (Mencap), added: “In particular, the growing inequality in people’s ability to access social care, and the vanishingly small options for those with little money, living in poor areas, is a source of huge concern to us.”
For the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, president Beverley Tarka said: “Funding is not keeping up with people’s needs, so fewer can access care and people who can’t afford to pay for care themselves are more likely to be going without the support they need, and it’s left care staff overworked, stressed, and poorly paid, meaning many leave their jobs and we have difficulty recruiting people to replace them.”