Bed blocking (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

Bed blocking

July 6, 2007 11:38 AM

Serious underfunding from central government in social care for older people means that on average 70 patients are waiting for care packages so that they can be discharged from hospital, councillors were told at yesterday's Social and Community Services Scrutiny Committee meeting.

At a time when the Council is supposedly working closely with its NHS partners through 'pooled budgets' this shows a 'fatally flawed system', officers reported, resulting in huge pressures on the social care budget at a time when the Council is already making cuts.

Cllr. Janet Godden, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Social and Community Care said, "We heard that Surrey County Council, for example. has a better system than ours, and it doesn't sound as though that would be difficult to implement here.

"Matters are even worse than they might be in Oxfordshire because of the Tory Cabinet's insistence on generating additional 'savings' in order to reduce the council tax. While it is true that the unfair council tax is most unfair on older people, service reductions also affect older people the most. One man's council tax cut is another man's service cut. A very small amount on our council tax would go some way towards meeting these pressures. But the Tory administration is hell bent on making so-called savings, which just increase the misery we heard about yesterday."